Volume 1 Issue 2

1 2 July 2001

Features:

Domain Names - Bloomberg LP v Secausus Group: Adding .sucks to a trade mark might be considered the legitimate exercise of free speech and give the registrant rights to the domain name.

Domain Names - WH Smith Ltd v Colman: At issue was the disclosure of without prejudice correspondence. In this instance the letter was held not to be disclosable.

Data Protection - The US Federal Trade Commission has decided not to take any punitive action against Amazon after an investigation of consumer complaints against the online retailer.

Copyright - A & M Records v Napster Inc: US Courts of Appeals judgement decisive in determining the future of online file swapping.

IP Rights - New York Times v Tasini: US Supreme Court judgement that freelance writers own the electronic rights to their work.

Contracts - Internet Trading Clubs Ltd v Freeserve (Investments): Freeserve successfully defended its position in terminating a contract to provide a hyperlink to a joint venture which had failed to live up to expectations.

Linking - Algemeen Dagblad B.V & others v Eureka Internetdiensten: In this Dutch case publishers failed to win an injunction against a site that was providing deep links to articles on their website.

Database - StepStone v Ofir: In this German case StepStone won an injunction against Ofir who had been searching through StepStone’s online job data base.

Deep Linking - Havas and Cadres on line v Keljob: Cadres on line won an injunction to stop Keljob from establishing deep links to specific jobs on Cadres on line website.

Business Patents - Welcome Real-Time SA v Catuity Inc: This Federal Court of Australia ruling suggests Australia could be turning out to be a potentially liberal jurisdiction for those seeking to obtain protection for business method (and software) related inventions.

Online Dispute Resolution - Resolution across borders: This case study examines online dispute resolution between a consumer and a retailer, one based in Hong Kong and the other in South America.

Website Owners Liability - Sir Elton John and others v Countess Joulebine and others: The High Court has held a website operator liable for breach of confidence.