Marianne Bihari, an interior designer, and her company Bihari Interiors Inc. brought a lawsuit against Craig Gross, a former customer of Bihari, and Yolanda Truglio for federal unfair competition, cybersquatting, trademark dilution, common law unfair competition, libel, and tortious intereference with contract. Bihari sought to enjoin Gross and Truglio from using the marks or meta-tags "Bihari" and "Bihari Interiors" in websites critical of Bihari and Bihari Interiors Inc.

In her six-count complaint, Bihari alleges that Gross, after a failed settlement conference arising from a previous business dealing with Bihari, registered the web addresses "bihari.com" and "bihariinteriors.com." Compl. ¶ 31. Bihari asserts that Truglio sent her a facsimile announcing that "the web site 'www.bihairinteriors' was currently under construction" to ensure that Bihari "knew of the harm Gross was willing and able to inflict." Compl. ¶¶ 32-35. Bihari claims that Gross later registered "designscam.com" and "manhattaninteriordesign.com," each of which had identical content to "bihari.com" and used meta-tags "bihari" and "bihari interiors." Compl. ¶¶ 66-68.

These sites purport to "protect you from experiencing the overwhelming grief and aggravation in dealing with someone that allegedly only has intentions to defraud." Compl. ¶ 79.a. Each site has a large animated banner reading “Do not fall prey to Marianne Bihari or Bihari Interiors” and links to "the scam." Compl. ¶¶ 78, 80. Bihari believes that Gross designed these sites to spread "misleading and defamatory information about [Bihari Interiors] and thereby harm [its] reputation and goodwill." Compl. ¶ 65.

The court denied Bihari's request for an injunction. The court held that Gross' conduct did not violate the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act because by the time of the decision, "Gross ha[d] abandoned [bihari.com and bihariinteriors.com] and promised to transfer the domain names back."  The court also held that Bihari would not succeed in her claims of trademark infringement because she could not show that Gross' conduct was "likely to cause confusion . . . as to the affliation . . . or approval of" the defendant's goods or services. The court reasoned that Gross' use of the "Bihari Interiors" mark in meta-tags for designscam.com and manhattaninteriors.com would not cause consumer confusion since "[n]o reasonable viewer would believe that the disparaging comments regarding Bihari's business ethics . . . are endorsed by Bihari." Secondly, the court held that even if Gross' use of the mark in meta-tags caused confusion, the use would be protected under fair use, as they were "descriptive" and " used . . . in good faith." 

After the denial of an injunction, the parties held a pretrial conference on 12/04/2000. It appears that the parties settled the matter, as the court signed an order of discontinuance with prejudice on 12/06/2000. 

On February 13, 2009, Ascentive LLC, a company that develops software such as FinallyFast to improve computer performance, sued PCPitstop and its CEO, Rob Cheng, along with 1ShoppingCart.com, a conveyer of eCommerce software and ad-tracking services, and ten anonymous posters on PCPitstop’s forums.  Ascentive alleges that PCPitstop, assisted by 1ShoppingCart, purchased search keywords tied to Ascentive’s “FinallyFast.com” trademark on Google and Yahoo!.  The complaint also alleges that false and defamatory statements regarding Ascentive’s software was posted to PCPitstop’s forum by PCPitstop employees and/or third parties.  Ascentive is represented by Steven T. Lovett and Marc Alifanz of Stoel Rives LLP, while PCPitstop is represented by Christopher W. Angius of Holland & Knight LLP.

The six-count complaint alleges trademark infringement, unfair competition, and vicarious and contributory Lanham Act violations against PCPitstop, Rob Cheng, and 1ShoppingCart with respect to the alleged purchase of search keywords tied to Ascentive’s “FinallyFast.com” trademark.  It also alleges breach of contract against PCPitstop and Mr. Cheng for the alleged resumption of trademark-linked keyword purchasing in January 2009, after Mr. Cheng had allegedly agreed to curtail such activities in July 2008.  Finally, the complaint alleges defamation against PCPitstop and Does 1-10 for allegedly false factual statements posted to PCPitstop’s forum.  The complaint alleges that such statements include the following assertions:

• FinallyFast is a “scam”;
• Ascentive “promotes adware and phishing scams”;
• FinallyFast is “very difficult to get off” of a computer once installed;
• “Ascentive products are known to scare the user with a long list of false positive results” ;
• “It is likely that these products are cheap knock-offs of well known freeware products”; and
• Dealing with companies such as Ascentive includes the danger that “the program will actually do your computer more harm than good.”

Compl. ¶¶ 65, 67.

Ascentive is seeking an injunction to prevent:

• The purchase or use of Ascentive’s trademarks or similar marks or names by PCPitstop, its advertisers, and affiliates in connection with search keywords or any products not authorized by Ascentive;
• Any conduct by PCPitstop’s advertisers or affiliates that would confuse purchasers into believing any of PCPitstop’s products are associated with or authorized by Ascentive;
• Unfair competition by PCPitstop, its advertisers, and affiliates with Ascentive; and
• The publication or posting of false and defamatory statements regarding Ascentive or its products on the PCPitstop website.

Compl. (Prayer for Relief) ¶ a.  Ascentive seeks damages sustained in consequence of the alleged trademark infringement, unfair competition, breach of contract, and defamation.  It also seeks accounting for gains, profits, and advantages derived from PCPitstop’s alleged infringement and unfair competition.  Ascentive is seeking trebled damages under section 1117 of the Lanham Act.

On April 28, 2009, Ascentive voluntarily dismissed its case, with prejudice.

Counsel for Newt Gingrich, Saul Anuzis, and American Solutions for Winning the Future sent a cease-and-desist letter to The Truth About EFCA.org, a website advocating in favor of enacting the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The website is run anonymously, so the letter was sent to its domain registrar ContactPrivacy.com (owned by Tucows, Inc.).  It was cc'd  to Twitter, Inc. 

The letter complains about a Twitter user going by the handle EFCANOW who tweeted the following on May 2, 2009:  "Join @newtgingrich @sanuzis in signing the EFCA Freedom Not Fear petition at http://action.americanright... WSJ." The letter demands "that you immediately take down an illegal and fraudulent posting on Twitter . . . which falsely purports to be written by our clients and unlawfully uses the name of Messrs. [Newt] Gingrich and [Saul] Anuzis."  

The letter asserts that the continued publication of the offending tweet "can expose any and all involved parties (including Twitter, ContactPrivacy.com and/or TwoCows [sic]) to substantial, ongoing, and even personal liability," and claims that the tweet constitutes trademark infringement, violation of Gingrich's and Anuzis' publicity rights, false advertising, false designation of origin, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage and contractual relations, common law and computer trespass, conversion, traditional fraud and wire fraud, breach of contract, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and RICO violations.

On March 5, 2008, Cintas, a Fortune 500 company and manufacturer of uniforms, sued several unions, including UNITE HERE, Change to Win, and International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and several individuals, including Bruce Raynor, Ahmer Qadeer, Keith Mestrich, Elizabeth Gres, Peter Demay, Katie Unger, Stefan Antonowicz, and Does 1-100.  The complaint alleged violations of the RICO Act, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, violations of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, and defamation arising out of the defendants' activities online.  

Cintas claims that the defendants first attempted to interfere with their business and exploit fear of economic loss by disseminating false information through print and over the Internet.  Cintas next alleges that defendants made it clear that their interference would only cease if entered into an agreement with defendants regarding union representation.  

The defendants set up several websites that criticized Cintas, including cintasexposed.org (targeting customers), uniformjustice.org (targeting employees) and notonmytrack.info (targeting NASCAR fans).

On June 20, 2008, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint arguing that Cintas had failed to state any valid federal claims.  In addition, they argued that their actions were protected by the First Amendment.  Specifically, defendants argued that the trademark allegations, including those directed at their website, cintasexposed.org, must fail because their use of the Cintas mark was not commercial and posed no risk of confusion.

On March 9, 2009, the district court dismissed all of Cintas' federal claims and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over its state law claims.  The court dismissed the trademark infringement claim, agreeing that there was no risk of consumer confusion with the use of "Cintas" in cintasexposed.org.  The court noted the obvious critical bent of the website and a disclaimer stating: "CintasExposed.org is an independent website posted by the labor union Unite. It contains criticism and information about the uniform and facilities services rental company Cintas . . . ." 

The court also dismissed the trademark dilution claim, finding that links to the UNITE HERE website, which in turn linked to the UNITE HERE store, did not make the use of the Cintas mark commercial. The court dismissed the cybersquatting claim by noting the defendants were not using the URL as part of a bad faith effort to make a profit.

Cintas filed a notice of appeal in late March 2009.

Banking and securities firm Goldman, Sachs & Co. sent a cease-and-desist letter to blogger Michael Morgan alleging that his websites infringed the firm's "Goldman Sachs" trademark.  The websites -- www.goldmansachs666.com and www.goldmansachs13.com -- serve as "an open forum for facts and discussion about what part Goldman Sachs and their executives played in the current Global Economic Crisis."  Morgan, a registered investment adviser, criticized the firm in site postings.

Goldman Sachs' letter alleges that the sites' domain names and content infringe the "Goldman Sachs" mark, violate other intellectual property rights, and constitute unfair competition.  The letter also alleges that Morgan's use of the mark gives the false impression that Morgan has an affiliation or commercial relationship with Goldman Sachs.

In response, Morgan filed a lawsuit for declaratory judgment in Florida federal court.  Morgan asked the court to declare that Morgan's websites and domain names did not infringe Goldman Sachs' trademark rights.  Morgan's Complaint also asked for declaratory judgment on Goldman Sachs' other claims.

Update:

7/17/09 - MediaPost reported that the parties settled, with Morgan agreeing to withdraw his lawsuit and Goldman Sachs promising not to sue, provided that Morgan continues to run a disclaimer on the site.

On January 14, 2008, the Associated Press (AP) sued All Headline News (AHN), W. Jeffrey Brown, the owner of AHN, and Danielle George, a senior editor for AHN.  The AP claims that AHN is illegally copying and rewriting stories by AP reporters and distributing the stories to clients and displaying the stories on the AHN website.  The AP is seeking to restrain AHN from further distribution of AP material and to recover unspecified damages.

The AP is a not-for-profit membership corporation that describes itself as the oldest and largest news agency in the world, employing about 3,000 reporters, and distributing news content to thousands of radio and television stations, newspapers, and internet news portals.  AHN is a Florida-based company that describes itself as "a leading provider of news, weather, and other content for web sites, wireless, digital signage, interactive applications, broadcast and print use."  The AP's complaint alleges that AHN does not employ its own reporters, and instead instructs its writers to copy or rewrite breaking news stories found on the Internet. 

The AP's complaint specifically identifies six articles written by AP reporters, claiming that AHN "copied some or all of the expression contained within" the articles, and then transmitted the articles to AHN customers and displayed the articles on the AHN website.  The AP claims that these and similar practices have infringed their copyright "hundreds if not thousands of times."  The AP claims these practices also violated their quasi-property right in breaking news under the New York common law tort of hot news misappropriation.  The AP also alleges that AHN intentionally removed the AP's name from some news reports, constituting impermissible altering or removing of copyright management information under the DMCA.  AP's amended complaint also includes claims for trademark infringement, unfair competition in violation of the Lanham Act, unfair competition in violation of New York Common law, and breaches of contract. 

On February 17, 2009, Judge P. Kevin Castel, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, granted AHN's motion to dismiss the trademark claim, finding that it lacked factual support.  Judge Castel also dismissed the claim of unfair competition under the Lanham Act, finding that AHN can legally claim that it maintains a "news division" even if they do no original reporting.  Judge Castel declined to dismiss the other claims, most notably finding that hot news misappropriation was a recognized cause of action under New York law. 

Update:

3/19/09 - The parties agreed to pursue private mediation.

6/15/09 - The court dismissed claims after the parties reached a settlement. According to a subsequent press release, AHN paid an unspecified sum to settle the case and "agreed that [it] would not make competitive use of content or expression from AP stories."  AHN also acknowledged that "there were many instances in which AHN improperly used AP's content without AP's consent" and that "the tort of 'hot news misappropriation' has been upheld by other courts and was ruled applicable in this case by U.S. District Court Judge P. Kevin Castel."

On July 7, 2003, Kathy Knight-McConnell sued Mary Cummins for securities law violations, trademark infringement, defamation, and other claims in federal court in New York.  At the time of the litigation, Knight-McConnell ran a forum for investor discussions and published a newsletter on various stocks.  According to a court decision in the case, Cummins, a stock trader from California, posted statements on website discussion groups and on her own website describing Knight-McConnell as a securities fraud "criminal," "insane," "paid to lie to investors," and "obese," among other things.  

In addition, Knight-McConnell alleged that Cummins intentionally maligned certain stocks that she promoted in order to drive their price down in violation of the securities laws.  Knight-McConnell also claimed that Cummins violated trademark law by linking to Knight-McConnell's website without permission, using Knight-McConnell's name in the post-domain path of URLs for seven of her web-pages, and posting liniks on Internet chat forums and discussion boards directing users to visit these pages."  

In a July 2004 opinion, Judge Buchwald dismissed the securities and trademark claims.  The court indicated that Knight-McConnell had no standing to bring a securities law claim because she did not allege that she purchased or sold the stocks in question in reliance on any statement by Cummins.  The court dismissed the trademark claim because linking to Knight-McConnell's site without permission was not likely to cause confusion as a matter of law:

Even if we assume that plaintiff's name is a valid and protectible mark, plaintiff has not alleged that the defendant engaged in any conduct that is likely to cause confusion as to the origin of the defendant's website.  The mere appearance on a website of a hyperlink to another site will not lead a web-user to conclude that the owner of the site he is visiting is associated with the owner of the linked site.  This is particularly true in this case because defendant's website advertises real estate and web design services, not investment services, and defendant is continuously dissassociating herself from plaintiff by criticizing her and accusing her of misconduct.

Judge Buchwald also determined that using Knight-McConnell's name in URL paths was not likely to cause confusion as a matter of law because a URL "merely shows how the website's data is organized within the host computer's files" and does not suggest affiliation, source, or sponsorship.

Looking at Knight-McConnell's many state law claims, Judge Buchwald determined that the complaint likely stated a cause of action for defamation, but that a defamation claim was not sufficient to confer personal jurisdiction on the court.  Buchwald indicated that Knight-McConnell's tortious interference with contract claim might be sufficient to establish jurisdiction under New York's long-arm statute, but that Knight-McConnell had failed to adequately plead this cause of action.  The court dismissed the complaint without prejudice and granted Knight-McConnell permission to amend her complaint.

Knight-McConnell amended her complaint, but, upon a renewed motion by Cummins, Judge Buchwald dismissed the case for lack of personal jurisdiction in June 2005.  

On February 25, 2009, Michael Wolff, founder of Newser, blogged that Newser had recently received a letter from the New York Times requesting that it stop using the Times' "T" logo.  Newser is a news aggregator and curator that links to and summarizes articles from news sources around the web.  The articles are presented as a grid of photographs, each overlayed with the title of the article, the amount of time since it was uploaded, and the source of the article, usually accompanied by a small logo of that source. 

Wolff has not made the letter public, but he told the Neiman Journalism Lab that it came from the New York Times Company's General Counsel's office.  Wolff told Peter Kafka, of MediaMemo, that the letter was "legal boilerplate," warning that the Times would "pursue all available remedies, both criminal and civil" if they continued to use the logo.

Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the Times, told the Neiman Journalism Lab that they asked Newser to stop using the "gothic 'T' logo," which is trademarked, and asked Newser to take down a photo that was used without permission and misattributed, presumably on the basis of copyright. She also told the Neiman Journalism Lab that Newser took down the photo. The Times' logo still appears on Newser for summaries from the New York Times.  

Automobile salesman Chris Zammito sued former employee Richard Havrda over a gripe site Havrda created at www.zammitoautogroup.com.  Zammito's complaint brought trademark infringment and cybersquatting claims over the site's use of the name "Zammito Auto Group."  As part of the cybersquatting claim, Zammito noted that Havrda offered to sell the domain for $1,000 and a $100 restaurant gift card. Zammito also brought a defamation claim arising from the site's inclusion of a photograph of Zammito and various derogatory statements about Zammito, his family, and the company.

Havrda disputed Zammito's claims in his answer.  He claimed that at least one of the disputed website statements was quoted from Zammito himself, who allegedly "loudly proclaimed the derogatory statements about his wife in a drunk and disorderly fashion" at a dinner with Havrda and others at Black Bass Grille -- the restaurant for which Havdra requested a gift card.  See Havrda's Answer at ¶ 10. 

Havrda's answer also stated that he already had removed the disputed site content per Zammito's request.  Havrda attached to his answer a letter in which he apologized to Zammito and his family and promised to surrender the zammitoautogroup.com domain. 

Two months after Havrda filed his answer and apology letter, the parties stipulated to dismissal of the case with prejudice, suggesting that they reached a settlement.