LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®

Originally posted 2008-05-26 10:30:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®’s “blogroll” policy has not really changed, even though LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® is bigger and better than ever, but it may be useful to clarify it, because I do get inquiries, and there have been some refinements.  Namely, ones that I just made up. And this blog is now “big” enough in our micro-sub-niche that it is reasonable to assume that some people might care to know what the rules are considering that, indeed, they ask us about linking.

1. The basic rule is one of reciprocation: Any bona fide blog that puts LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® on its blogroll will be put on the blogroll here. You don’t have to be an IP blog, or even be very good. Non-bona-fide, of course, means pure spam blogs, commercial websites without real editorial content and those annoying link farms, whatever the heck they’re really called in webby lingo.
2. There are exceptions to the bona-fide-reciprocation rule. If your blog uses a lot of four-letter words or other over-the-top NSFW content, I won’t link to you, no matter how brilliant you are. Also if your blog is clean as a whistle, but you’re a Nazi, or a particularly bad kind of Commie, no linkee. Hence your blog could come and go on the blogroll depending on how you’re behaving lately.
3. I pretty much don’t respond to inquiries, whether from blog authors or their consultants or other hirelings, about “link exchanges,” in the blogroll or otherwise. If your blog is real and you link to LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® in your blogroll,* I will link to you in mine.  That doesn’t mean you can’t give me a head’s up that you’ve done so, however.
4. On the other hand, if I add you but you show your utter lack of gratitude for the torrent of traffic that comes your way by going more than a month… or two… without adding content… goom-bye. The blogroll is for live websites. Luckily this is a forgiving policy because I don’t do as much maintenance as I ought to (or as certain people have promised they would help me do) and even then, if you reappear on the link radar screen, I welcome you back to your alphabetical space in the blogroll like the most prodigal of sons.
5. Similarly, if you change your URL and the old one does not re-direct, obviously it’s up to you to let me know by sending an email to the-name-of-this-blog @ GMail. I know you care, after all, because you’ve read this far. Sometimes, after all, people get to your blog via my blog. Kind of thing.
6. This is not a contract, for Heaven’s sake! This is my blog. It is mine. It is beautiful, and it is mine. I don’t have to link anybody and nobody has to link me. It’s all at my discretion. Mine, mine, mine! These are the rules I apply. In my discretion. Total, unfettered, arbitrary and capricious discretion.  No contract, no reliance, no jurisdiction, no NOTHING.  Talk to the hand.
7. There is, of course, no seventh thing.

* Is it a “blogroll” if it’s not on the home page?  I am still thinking about that.  Let’s see if the one I just linked to results in any traffic this way.  That’s a scientific way to decide, isn’t it?

Originally posted 2012-10-23 21:13:14. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Tomorrow night TONIGHT (October 24th) at Fordham Law School I will be speaking on a panel with fashion lawyers Bernice K. Leber of Arent Fox, Ted Max of Sheppard Mullin and Jeff Trexler of Fordham about “Fashion Lawyers’ Advertising.”  It’s “a Fashion Law Ethics & Professionalism CLE program”!  The distinguished panel will discuss “strategies for maintaining professional standards while promoting a practice in this newly defined and growing field.”

DATE: Tuesday, October 24, 2012
TIME: 6:30-8:30 pm
PLACE: Fordham Law School, 140 W. 62nd Street, Room 430 B/C

Click here to register if you’re a lawyer.  Click here to register if you’re something else.  Don’t ask, just click.

I am going to really have to be a “fashion lawyer” for this, I think.  I presume that means I will have to wear something nice.  Or extra nice!

And, of course, this is the “advertising.”  Seems ethical and professional, no?

We can discuss it tomorrow night, uptown.  See you there!

Originally posted 2009-09-21 22:24:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Last week’s utterly unmissable topical tweets via @roncoleman:

Now, fly like the wind!

Originally posted 2009-10-19 13:32:45. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Here are last week’s too, too topical tweets shared with my slavish devotees via @roncoleman:

• RT @TrademarkBlog Ralph Lauren Apologizes For Image Of Emaciated Model: “We Are Responsible” (UPDATE)http://bit.ly/4te40O
• RT @gfiremark Why every writing team should have a written collaboration agreement. (part 3 of 3) http://is.gd/4ibHF
• RT @walterolson World turned upside down: Daily Kos is making sense on FTC blogger regs http://is.gd/4jFkw My take:http://is.gd/4jmYR
• RT @internetcases: MySpace posting wasn’t improper character evidence at murder trial: http://is.gd/4lb0o
• RT @MegLG: Mary Kay Suing Another Product Liquidatorhttp://ow.ly/uGhD Ah the old “diversion” game – http://bit.ly/2LnnC3
• RT @ericgoldman Blog Post: Q3 2009 Quick Links, Part 3http://bit.ly/4rVLmu
• RT @ScottGreenfield: New Post: Blogging Is Alive, And Aggravatinghttp://bit.ly/2wIXZp – Wow. Scott gets it, folks.

That should feather your nest!

Originally posted 2010-03-09 20:56:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Originally posted 2007-05-21 19:50:16. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

MySpace walks the thin line between being an arm of the law and being a heel:

Popular Internet social network MySpace said on Monday it reached an accord with eight U.S. state attorneys general and has worked out a legal mechanism to hand over information on convicted sex offenders found on its service.

…

Part of the dispute with legal authorities was over the term “deletion” of profiles, MySpace officials said. Although the service has deleted the profiles from MySpace, information is collected in its database for law enforcement, Angus said.

I’d like the name of the guy responsible for MySpace’s user interface, actually. Talk about offenders.

UPDATE:  I don’t know why I used a Mr. Softee face here.  I, too, am deeply sorry.

Originally posted 2010-03-12 15:15:15. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Here’s what I have been chirping about lately:

• RT @ArsLaw: Tenenbaum: $675K stat. dams absurd; I caused $21 in losses | Ok, even I don’t buy that math.
• RT @CopyrightLaw: Exclusive Rights: “11th Cir. finds medical forms lack sufficient originality; rejects Feist standard”
• RT @CopyrightLaw: Goldman: “Rare Ruling on Damages for Sending Bogus Copyright Takedown Notice–Lenz v. Universal”
• RT @internetcases RT @ernieattorney: Judge sides w/mom who used Prince cut in background of YouTube video /via @cyberlaw
• RT @overlawyered @petewarden: Anyone with $ can sue anyone with less $ and put him out of business | Pretty much.
• RT @smbayard: ABA Journal on recent PA decision refusing to unmask anonymous news site commenters - Nice props
• RT @InternetLaw: Court says Apple doesn’t own the letter ‘I’”

Yes, a big couple of weeks for copyright to followers of the profound @roncoleman 140-gauge stream–but that Apple decision this week does bring up the rear nicely on trademark news.  Either way, it’s good to hang around smart people, because contrary to popular belief to the contrary, it can make you look smart, too!

Have a great weekend!

Originally posted 2006-03-31 16:38:06. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

After you get past my book, get this book by my friend Mark Herrmann. (Who’s not quite a curmudgeon.)

I read it in preview (and provided a blurb) and believe me, it’s a must read for people seeking to succeed in the legal profession.

Originally posted 2009-04-01 16:04:19. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

The Sweden Pirate Bay trial is long over, and the verdict is due in a couple of weeks verdict is long in — if that “really matters.”

But even if you didn’t think it was safe to go back in the water yet, Marty Schwimmer links to this story, suggesting double-decked linkin’ and sinkin’ liability for Facebook due to a new  “feature that makes it easy for web users to post links to pirated material on their Facebook page.”

Rough seas out there, me hearties!

Originally posted 2009-04-30 09:28:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

When I first retired from my utter misues of Twitter (it was all the rage!), I did so by politely bidding farewell to my 500 or so “followers” and then scattering the whole cloud of them by canceling my Twitter account.

I then counted to five… and quickly re-registered for Twitter using the same name.  I now use Twitter relatively passively, mainly as a way to publish the feed for my two blogs and to pass along to “followers” stuff that’s topically relevant, or which is slightly off topic but still presumably interesting to that … kind of person.  But my immediate purpose when I re-upped was to make sure no one else picked up @RonColeman.

In the little space in which I operate, my name is a kind of brand, and at that point, given the gaudy 99-ish Twitter Rank ranking I had at the time (it’s now back up there), the Twitter ID “@roncoleman” did have some “secondary meaning,” so to speak.  I didn’t want anyone else using it and, of course, I wanted to know I still could have it if for some reason I wanted to come back.

Good thinking, it turns out. Some people and companies are quicker on the trademark draw than others when it comes to social media. Stuff.co.nz reports on the second-time-as-farce recapitulation of those land-grab moments in domain name history, this time being played out over the narrow-cast social networking obsession that is Twitter:

What do Kevin Rudd, Nicole Kidman, Coca-Cola and Nike all have in common? They are all victims of squatters of their Twitter identities, in what appears to be a growing phenomenon on the burgeoning social networking website.

A leading Sydney law firm is warning clients to register their identities on the micro-blogging site or risk losing their identity to a squatter or a rival. . .

Is it really so anarchic on Twitter?  Maybe not:

[Brand owners] such as Coca-Cola have been forced to make do with less than satisfactory monikers, such as CocaColaCo. But in something of a first, the company has complained directly to Twitter about squatting on its trademark and succeeded in getting the CocaCola ID “suspended” and then handed back.

Last night a Coca-Cola spokesman had some good news to report. “We are now officially in possession of the ‘coca-cola’ account, as Twitter acknowledged the name as a registered trademark of the Coca-Cola Company,” he said.

Well, yes, Twitter does have a policy like that actually — didn’t you know?  Read More…

Originally posted 2008-12-09 17:12:21. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Here’s a notice regarding our lust for life from C.C. Holland at Law.com:

The litmus test for whether you should start a blog boils down to passion, says Kevin O’Keefe, CEO of professional blog service LexBlog and a blogger himself. “I think every attorney should consider blogging, [but] if you don’t have a passion for the subject, that shines through.”

Your enthusiasm might align with your area of practice or be completely tangential. For example, Ronald D. Coleman, a commercial litigator with Goetz Fitzpatrick who focuses on copyright, trademark and unfair competition, blogs about those topics on Likelihood of Confusion.

Nice to be mentioned in connection with enthusiasm.  A man becomes preeminent, he’s expected to have enthusiasms.

Originally posted 2009-10-12 20:58:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Here’s some of the topical stuff I passed along @roncoleman via Twitter since the last time I rounded up these squawks:

• RT @TTABlog: TTAB Requires Amendment of Fraud Counterclaim in Light of Bose http://bit.ly/UWPV8
• RT @InternetLaw: “Senate Says Amateur Journalists Don’t Deserve Shield Protection” http://tinyurl.com/yel4b49 (I’m against all shield laws)
• Social notworking? Or something else? http://bit.ly/3l5WoW
• RT @mglickman Disney Appreciation Student Group Told They Can’t Get Together To Watch Disney Movies http://ff.im/-94Jp4
• RT @RobertCox Jerks! IOC Tries to Take Down Olympic Photos on Flickr http://tr.im/B0yY

Enjoy the view, fellow bird brains!