Law Office of
A. Edward Doudera
PUBLICATIONS and NOTES:
In addition to the topics discussed in the IP Newsletter (next tab), this section offers brief comments on timely topics of concern to my firm and my clients, as well as citations to published papers. I invite readers to contact me.
Use of Another's Trademark in your Meta Tags is Trademark Infringement
The federal courts continue to wrestle with this issue - is it trademark infringement to use a competitor's trademark in the meta tags used for one's own website? The same question arises when one purchases a competitor's trademark in a Google ad auction. While earlier cases found that such use was not "trademark use" - that is, it did not constiute the "use in commerce" necessary for trademark infringement, the newest cases are finding that such use is "use in commerce" and are finding infringement.
For instance, an April 2008 decision out of the Eleventh Circuit - North American Medical Corp. v. Axion Worldwide - specifically held that Axion's use of two of NAM's registered trademarks within the invisible meta tags used for the Axion website constituted the requisite "use in commerce" since the use was made in connection with Axion's sale and advertisement of its goods on the Internet. It was immaterial that the NAM trademarks were not visible to computer users, the use of the trademarks as meta tags caused search engines to send Internet searchers to the Axion website and that was sufficient.
Knowledge Transfer for Scientific Research Institutions, Schoodic Point, Maine, June 2005. Sponsored by the Center for Law & Innovation at the University of Southern Maine, the two-day, invitation-only workshop was designed for scientists and administrators at Maine's scientific research organizations and universities. My presentation was entitled Institutional Policies Concerning Intellectual Property and addressed the rationale behind policies requiring the institutional ownership of potentially patentable discoveries and of copyrightable works invented or created by faculty, employees, students and visitors as well as the specific issues that such policies should address and the various approaches that can be utilized.
PAPERS:
Ownership of Inventions and Executive Order 10094 (2004)(an examination of the history and effect of Executive Order 10096 that provides that the various Federal agencies own the inventions created by their employees, individually or made in conjunction with others, and how this policy impacts and conflicts with the basic thrust of The Bayh-Dole Act that provides that non-profit organizations, colleges and universities should be the owners of inventions and copyrightable works created by their employees, faculty, students and visitors). http://ipmall.info/hosted_resources/ip_courses/hersey_karen/Doudera_Edward_Ownership.pdf
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