Lanham Act

Herbal sued defendant for Lanham Act violations, an intentional tort.  Accordingly, the court applied the Calder effects test to determine whether Arizona could assert personal jurisdiction over the defendant.  Defendants purposefully directed their tortious activities toward Arizona by selling to Arizona residents on an interactive website.  The alleged harm arose from those sales, among others.  And Herbal's pre-suit cease-and-desist letters… Read More

Federal legislation is presumed to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States unless Congress affirmatively and unmistakably instructs otherwise.  Absent such an instruction, the court must determine the focus of congressional concern underlying the legislation and then determine whether the conduct relevant to that focus occurred in the US or elsewhere.  Here, the focus of the Lanham… Read More

Plaintiff had no viable claim against GoDaddy for selling a domain name to a third party purchaser after plaintiff failed to pay GoDaddy the renewal fee for that domain name.  GoDaddy was not liable under the Lanham Act because the purchaser rather than GoDaddy used the domain name in commerce.  Also, GoDaddy was immune from the claim under the Anticybersquatting… Read More

A trade dress need not be associated in the public mind with a particular manufacturer or other provider in order to acquire secondary meaning and thus be protectible under the Lanham Act.  It is enough to show that the public thinks the product in that dress comes from a single source, even if the public cannot identify which source that… Read More