Domain Valuation, Trademark Tracker & Google Insight

I was very excited to come across this website today.  Valuate.com evaluates the $ value of your domain.  Just type in your domain name, or the one you are thinking about buying, and it gives you a number.  It also has a ‘trademark checker’ that automatically checks for trademark infringement.  I have no idea how it works, but hey, still very cool!  I typed in branigan.com (some guy has parked it with ads, sigh….) and it valued that domain at $2,800.  I own braniganrobertson.com, which is valued at $0.

I came across an even cooler website for fellow internet dorks.  Google Insight for Search is pretty amazing (yes, I know I’m behind on this one).  I typed ‘trademark’ and narrowed the search patterns down so I could look at California alone.  Folks in Los Angeles typed ‘trademark’ into Google a lot more than people in San Francisco.  If you sign up for a account you can see the actual numbers.  I haven’t tinkered with it enough to know of the real impact of how it can help someone looking to evaluate a domain, but it is definitely worth investigating.

Out of weird curiosity I typed in Lady Gaga.  People in Mongolia love her.  Fascinating….

Theft and Misappropriation of Company Trade Secrets

I’m not sure who this is, but he’s spot on.

Trade Secret Espionage?

In 2003, Lan Lee, a U.S. Citizen, and Yuefei Ge, a Chinese citizen, were both accused of stealing technology secrets from their former employers NetLogic Microsystems and Taiwan Semiconductor.  According to the September 26, 2007 indictment, Lee misappropriated chip technology from a Netlogics server and installed it on his home computer. Ge was also accused of installing Netlogics data sheets onto his private computer. If the facts ended there it would be traditional ‘Trade Secrets’ case.  But the facts don’t end there….

The men then obtained funding to set up their own company (SICO Microsystems) from a program funded by The General Armaments Department of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The program is operated by the PRC and is designed to develop and encourage the creation of technology in China, focusing on laser and communications technology for military applications. The FBI caught wind of it via an anonymous email.  According to United States Attorney Scott N. Schools,

The vigorous enforcement of intellectual property statutes increases the economic vitality of [the Silicon Valley] region, and adds to the security of our nation as a whole…. This office is committed to the prosecution of individuals who seek to benefit foreign governments or instrumentalities with stolen trade secrets.

However, after six days of deliberations, a federal jury in San Jose could not reach unanimous verdict on three important espionage charges against the two men.  Federal Judge James Ware returned the case to the prosecutors.  It is up to them if they want to keep pursing the case.  But as for now, it looks like the men might be off the hook.  Who knows, maybe Netlogics will now pursue a civil claim against them. I’ll be watching.

Russia.com sold for $1.5 million

Yowzers….  Digital property is expensive!  A few days ago, the domain russia.com sold for $1.5 million dollars.  The domain currently has information about Russian tourism.  The buyer was not disclosed but Domain Name News states:

The seller, New Media Holdings, also owns other country domains including Algeria.com, Morocco.com, PuertoRico.com, SouthAfrica.com, Scotland.com, and Ukraine.com.  The company had also listed several of their domains including PuertoRico.com ($3.5 M)  and Scotland.com ($3 M)….

The company is trying to sell these other domains on Sedo.com – a cool site for buying and selling domains.

OC Firm Fighting Microsoft (for $388M)

Uniloc, a small anti-piracy software maker located in Orange County, sued the beast of software – Microsoft – for patent infringement.  The disputed patent, one that involves device recognition technologies, protects software from being copied.  Apparently, Microsoft thought about licensing the software from Uniloc back in the 1990’s.  Microsoft decided against it, and according to Chief Executive Brad Davis (as quoted in the OC Business Journal):

They kicked the tires and said, ‘No thanks.’  And then a few years later it showed up in the market.

Well, earlier this year Uniloc won a $388 million whopper against the beast.  It originally sued Microsoft in 2003 and a federal judge dismissed the case in 2006.  Uniloc appealed. The Court of Appeals reversed and a federal jury awarded the small firm $388 million.  But, as the legal defense sharks for Microsoft side tend to do,  they got the judgment tossed on Sept. 28 by a federal judge.  Uniloc will appeal and we will all be watching….

Cybersquatting + Disgruntled Employee = ?

There is an interesting situation brewing in New Jersey.  An established law firm in NJ called Levinson Axelrod LLC (levinsonaxelrod.com) employed a lawyer by the name Edward Heyburn.  Edward didn’t like his job.  According to his website he didn’t like the people he worked for, either.  So once he was fired, he set up a website: levinsonaxelrod.net.  On this website Mr. Heyburn is griping about his former employer in a way that has attracted national attention.  According to a NJ.com article:

He said he launched his website . . . because “(the firm’s partners) have such an elitist attitude . . . .  I thought this was a very nice way to pull them out of the clouds,” Heyburn said.

But what interests me is the trademark and domain name issue behind it.  Is this cybersquatting? Is the company name ‘Levinson Axelrod’ a trademark?

First lets see if this is cybersquatting.  According to the Federal Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (15 U.S.C. § 1125 (d)) (paraphrased) a person shall be liable in a civil action by the owner of a mark if that person has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under this section; and registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that:

• in the case of a mark that is distinctive at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark;
• in the case of a famous mark that is famous at the time of registration of the domain name, is identical or confusingly similar to that mark; or
• is a trademark

So, my guess is (and I haven’t read any case law and I’m a law student and not a lawyer) that since Mr. Heyburn isn’t intending to profiting from his use of the .net domain name he probably won’t be liable for cybersquatting.  He’s just in it for the pleasure of ripping his old bosses.  Does he have bad faith?  Certainly.  According to the above cited statute the cybersquatter must intend to “divert consumers from the mark owner’s online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site.”

Well, is ‘Levinson Axelrod’ a trademark?  I went browsing for the federal trademark law and pulled Trademark Law from the US Patent and Trademark Office.  That is a big document that I’m gonna have to tackle another time.  My guess is that Levinson Axelrod is a trademark, but its past midnight and I’m delirious.  Cheers.

‘Edge’ a Trademark?

I liked this post by TechDirt.  A video game maker named Tim Langdell, who last released a video game in 1994, has gone around suing everyone for trademark infringement who makes a video game in which “Edge” appears in the game title.  The EDGE Games Wikipedia page on the dispute is pretty entertaining….

In May 2009, game developer Mobigame’s iPhone title Edge was removed from Apple’s App Store in the US and the UK due to lawsuit threats by Tim Langdell. According to Mobigames, the dispute arose while they were trying to register a trademark for Edge in the US, while Langdell claims he owns the global trademark on “Edge.”

According to the email dialogue between Langdell and Mobigames head David Papazian, shared with Eurogamer, Langdell delivered an ultimatum to Mobigames in exchange for a promise not to litigate. If they changed the game’s name, he demanded 25% of the game’s revenue for the time the title was on sale under the name “edge”, and if they licenced the Edge name, they would give him 10% of the game’s revenue in perpetuity….

But that isn’t the only company this dude has sued.  He also recently brought suit against PuzzleKing for its ‘Killer Edge Racing’ iPhone game.  Why, you may ask?  Simply because the word ‘Edge’ appears in the name.

According to PuzzleKing’s UK law firm, Sheridans, the trademark suit should be tossed because Edge hasn’t used the trademark for five years, subjecting the claims to be revoked.  The full article on PuzzleKing’s fight against Edge can be located on The Escapist.

 

U.S. v. Microsoft – 10 years later

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting David Boies twice, and both times I’ve come away in awe.  This is a good video on the man who has represented:

• Al Gore in Bush v. Gore
• The United States against Microsoft
• The Boss against Major League Baseball
• Napster against the RIAA
• Michael Moore
• Class action against Sotheby’s & Christie’s
• CBS
• Tyco International

LegalZoom Doesn’t know IP Law

Watch out!  If you’re filing a trademark with LegalZoom you better read this amazing article by Gene Quinn, Patent Attorney and founder of IPWatchdog.com.  According to Quinn,

The worst part of LegalZoom’s activities is not that they are practicing law without a license, but rather what they are telling their customers is flat wrong.

Apparently, LegalZoom’s trademark filing process requires the customer to fill out and submit a ‘Statement of Use,’ which is completely unnecessary and an excuse to charge additional fees.

So it would seem that LegalZoom is just wrong on the law here, or that they are engaging in unfair business practices aimed at generating unnecessary legal work.

Moral of the story? Contact a real IP attorney…. It may cost more, but it will be done right, and if not, you can sue them for malpractice.  Cheers….

Facebook = Alibi?

Criminal law isn’t my thing, but this goes to show you how much the internet has changed the legal system. Rodney Bradford was cruising Facebook when two gentlemen were mugged down the street by a guy who looked like Rodney.

 

 

According to this CNN article, Police thought Rodney was their guy, and he turned himself in when he heard the dudes in blue were looking for him.  After two weeks of cold-hard-dull jail time, a handy piece of evidence set him free:

Confirmation of the time stamp on the update and the location from which [his facebook status update] was entered showed he could not have been at the scene of a robbery in another part of New York City. After he had spent almost two weeks in jail, the case against him was dismissed.

I guess the moral of the story is Facebook isn’t a complete waste of time.