Monthly Archives: June 2009

The 9th Circuit issued its ruling in Coalition for ICANN Transparency v. VeriSign. It begins,

This appeal is about whether the plaintiff, Coalition for ICANN Transparency, Inc., using antitrust statutes drafted in the late 19th century, has successfully stated claims in connection with the administration of the Internet domain name system, so essential to the operation of our sophisticated 21st century communications network. The district court ruled that the plaintiff failed. With the benefit of extensive briefing, collegial discussions and amicus participation on appeal from other players in the domain name system, we hold that the plaintiff has stated claims under both Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.

Congratulations to Bret Fausett who wrote a brief that deserved to win.

I'm also pleased to note that the court relied in a small but key part on an article I co-wrote with Mark Lemley,

CFIT has essentially alleged that ICANN is a private standards-setting body akin to the NFPA. ICANN administers the DNS and is responsible for entering into agreements with registry operators like VeriSign. According to the complaint, ICANN’s mission includes a commitment to promoting competition for the contracts. CFIT’s allegations further state that ICANN, like the NFPA, is a private body with no public accountability. These allegations are consistent with the view held by commentators on the subject, who have, indeed, identified Allied Tube as providing the strongest argument in favor of imposing antitrust liability on those who seek to coerce ICANN. See Michael Froomkin & Mark A. Lemley, ICANN and Antitrust, 1 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1, 72-73 (2003) (noting that “given ICANN’s private status, VeriSign will face antitrust liability for persuading a private company in a position of power to grant it control over a market,” and naming Allied Tube as the “closest analogue”). We hold, therefore, that pursuant to The Supreme Court’s holding in Allied Tube, CFIT has adequately alleged that VeriSign’s improper coercion of ICANN and attempts to control ICANN’s operations in its own favor violated Section 2.

From the skimpy facts this sounds like (1) some Twitter user posted something pretending to be Tony La Russa; (2) Tony La Russa sued Twitter; (3) Section 230 of the CDA will block the defamation (but not the IP) claims. That said, it's a little hard to imagine how a trademark claim would work here — where's the likelihood of confusion? — but again without seeing the offending text it's hard to say much. For example, it might be a suit against Twitter and John Doe, in order to get Doe's identity, and the TM claim is there to avoid jurisdictional issues.

La Russa sues Twitter over false page: Cards manager says reputation damaged by fake 'Tweets'

Cardinals manager Tony La Russa filed suit against the social networking internet site Twitter.com last month, claiming that a page on the site that falsely used his name caused him to suffer “significant emotional distress [and] damage to reputation,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday.

La Russa is suing for trademark infringement, trademark dilution and misappropriation of name and likeness.

The website removed the false page shortly after the lawsuit was filed, the paper reported, and La Russa said Wednesday he thought the “issue was done.” He declined to elaborate.

The lawsuit includes a screenshot of the page and several “Tweets” associated with La Russa's name, two of which include distasteful references to Darryl Kile and Josh Hancock, Cardinals pitchers who died in 2002 and 2007.

If this is a John Doe case, does that make it the first against Twitter? Will the court apply the Dendrite test? I think it should.