Internet law in the Courts

摘要

The plaintiffs sued gripe site pissedconsumer.com for trademark infringement and other forms of unfair competition. The court denied the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction. It found, among other things, that the defendants' use of the plaintiffs' trademarks as subdomains (e.g., ascentive. Pissedconsumer.com) was not likely to cause confusion. The court looked to other cases in which gripe-site operators chose negative words to use in conjunction with the company being criticized. Over the years, gripe-site operators have commonly chosen to add the word "sucks" to the targeted brand. For example, in Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770 (6th Cir. 2003), the court held that there was no trademark violation by the site taubmansucks.com.