Trademark Law Should Not Be Used to Silence Speech.

The ninth circuit has ruled in a recent case that trademark law is not a “shield” from criticism and not a “sword” to silence unwanted speech. A man set up a website critical of Bosley Medical. The URL was http://www.bosleymedical.com/.
Boesley Medical sells hair restoration products. The full text of the case can be read here.
The court disagreed with the previous case of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals vs. Doughney where a man using the domain www.peta.org for his site “People that eat tasty animals” (PETA) was held to violate federal trademark law. CNN has an article that summarizes the Bosley lawsuit.

April 8, 2005 by Uncategorized 1

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1 Response

  1. mdoneil says:
    April 9, 2005 at 3:15 am

    9th Circus
    Again the 9th Circuit shows just how far out in left field they are. While I certainly support freedom of speech that freedom does not include the ability to hijack a corporate name to use as a URL to complain about the firm.

    Inclusion of the name in a domain name should of course be permissable such as bosleymedicalsucks.com or CokeTastesLikePee.com but the use of a trademarked name as a domain name by any other group or person is much more than simple dilution of the trademark it is obviously a act of bad faith.

    Sure, I don’t agree with everything PETA says -especially since I am an omnivore- but I would not attempt to use PETA.com to ridicule them.

    Even free speech has limits: fighting words, fire in a crowded theater, and I think we should add usurping a trademark to make commentary on the trademark holder.

    I think UPS is one of the worst companies on the face of the earth. If I get a package that has not been mangled by UPS it will be a red letter day. However I don’t think the owners of the sites critical of UPS should be allowed to take over the domain UPS.COM should it become available. That’s just not done.

    But the 9th Circuit in its limited wisdom begs to differ. I’m sure this case will now be appealed. Thanks again to these simpleton jurists for attempting to make legislation rather than interperet it.

    Reply

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