Our daily summary writers chose some interesting cases to share this week.
The 4th Circuit issued an opinion remanding the Rosetta Stone v. Google trademark case back to the district court for further proceedings. Rosetta Stone complained that Google AdWords infringed on their trademarks and caused likely and actual confusion for consumers. As Eric Goldman notes — “how 2005.” Professor Goldman has an excellent and detailed post on this case and its ramifications for trademark actions against Google. Go there for details.
The 2nd Circuit issued an interesting opinion in a criminal case against a former Goldman Sachs employee, Sergey Aleynikov, who was charged with theft for stealing computer code. In United States v. Aleynikov, the 2nd Circuit held that code is not tangible property, and thus cannot be stolen under the context of the statute. Our Techlaw blog has a more in-depth look at this case.
Finally, the Wyoming Supreme Court issued an opinion dealing with the free speech rights of Operation Save America, an anti-abortion protest group. In Operation Save America v. City of Jackson, the Court vacated an order barring the protesters from holding up graphic signs within a two block radius of the City’s 2011 Boy Scout’s Elk Fest. The Court applied strict scrutiny and found the order to be lacking.
