Overlawyered » competition through litigation

Ex-Palm CEO: Steve Jobs threatened patent suit if we kept recruiting his employees

Walter Olson — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 16:28:25 +0000

“I’m sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies when you say: ‘We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money.’” [TheVerge.com]

Ex-Palm CEO: Steve Jobs threatened patent suit if we kept recruiting his employees is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Free Google Maps unfair to paid competitors, France rules

Walter Olson — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:23:13 +0000

At Cato at Liberty, I find that uncannily reminiscent of a famous Bastiat parody (& IEA, Tim Worstall).

More from Coyote: “left unsaid is how they would jack up their prices when at least two other companies (Bing, Mapquest) also provide mapping services online for free.” But note that the French case arose not from Google’s furnishing of its free map service to individual end customers, but from its furnishing of its map API to businesses that typically adapt it for use in their own sites; as commenters at BoingBoing and Reddit as well as news reports point out, Google has indeed introduced fees for its largest business users of this type (which has caused some of them to adapt by switching from Google’s API to OpenStreetMap, a free wiki-based map service).

Tags: antitrust, competition through litigation, France, Google

Free Google Maps unfair to paid competitors, France rules is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Beet sugar interests sue over “corn sugar” coinage

Walter Olson — Tue, 03 May 2011 17:29:31 +0000

Public-spirited litigants Western Sugar Cooperative, Michigan Sugar Company and C & H Sugar Company, Inc., have filed a lawsuit charging corn refiners with false advertising in their recent campaign to relabel high-fructose corn syrup as “corn sugar.” “The sugar producers seek an injunction to end the advertising campaign and also seek damages, including compensation for corrective advertising.” [PR Newswire]

Tags: advertising, competition through litigation, eat drink and be merry

Beet sugar interests sue over “corn sugar” coinage is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

A case of sour cranberries?

Walter Olson — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 17:17:27 +0000

Ocean Spray sues a competitor over its alleged involvement in a social media campaign. [Charlie Mead, AmLaw Daily]

Tags: competition through litigation, social media

A case of sour cranberries? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Suing critics, competitors not a winning business strategy

Walter Olson — Wed, 05 May 2010 05:06:37 +0000

Or at least it wasn’t for one video firm [Paul Alan Levy, Consumer Law and Policy]

Tags: bullying businesses, competition through litigation, online speech, trademarks

Suing critics, competitors not a winning business strategy is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Anyone with money can sue anyone [with] less money and put them out of business”

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:17:37 +0000

“It doesn’t matter whether you have a case or not.” Reflections on legal friction between competing websites that assist in bringing reporters together with sources [Alain Raynaud, FairSoftware, via Pete Warden]

Tags: competition through litigation

“Anyone with money can sue anyone [with] less money and put them out of business” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Competition through litigation (ad division)

Walter Olson — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:18:05 +0000

The New York Times doesn’t have statistics, but its reporter thinks Lanham Act litigation (filed by companies against their competitors over allegedly misleading advertising) is on the rise these days.

Tags: advertising, competition through litigation

Competition through litigation (ad division) is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Book pricing antitrust petition

Walter Olson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:40:33 +0000

“The American Booksellers Association loves people who buy books. It loves them so much that it wants to protect them from wicked retailers who sell popular titles at affordable prices.” [Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe] More: Mark Perry.

Related: antitrust laws mostly “used today by one group of competitors to try to hamstring another competitor in their business” [Coyote on IBM mainframe investigation]

Tags: antitrust, competition through litigation, publishers, technology, Wal-Mart

Book pricing antitrust petition is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Amphibious-tour operators in S.F. battle over “quacking devices”

Walter Olson — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:42:02 +0000

Ride the Ducks says it has been inviting customers to toot on kazoos for a decade as part of its water-land tours in various cities. Now it is suing competitor Bay Quackers, which pioneered the duck tour concept in San Francisco (and was more recently joined there as a competitor by Ride the Ducks) for infringing its “sound mark”, an “auditory equivalent of a trademark”. [New York Times] [Corrected 2:30 p.m. after reader Kim S. pointed out that I hadn't correctly conveyed the details of which company operated where and when.]

Tags: competition through litigation, San Francisco, trademarks

Amphibious-tour operators in S.F. battle over “quacking devices” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system