Thursday, September 6, 2007

Two Blogs, Almost Identical Names

It had to come up eventually: Two blogs with almost idential names, and the issue of what intellectual property rights bloggers have to those names.

Here they are:
The Angry Pharmacist (started two years ago); and
The Angriest Pharmacist (started seven months ago).

Needless to say, Angry is not too pleased with Angriest, who concedes, "I did happen upon his site and loved it...so, I semi-jacked the name."

The original is (can you guess?) angry about the poaching of his or her name.

Complicating the issue for The Original Angry is that he uses a pseudonym. Assuming he could find out who Angriest is and bring a suit, how can he ever prove he was damaged?

Now intellectual property is not my long suit, but I am curious since the same thing can (and most likely will) happen in the legal blogosphere eventually, where use of real names is the norm. After all, there are about 1,000 legal blogs but about 1,000,000 lawyers in the country, and the future blawgosphere (for us less talented people who can't create pithy names) could look something like this:

The Podunk Criminal Law Blog;
The Podunk Criminal Blog;
The Podunk Criminal Law Blawg;
The Podunk Criminal Law Legal Blog.

I toss this out there with the hope that someone, somewhere, might have a few thoughts on this...

(Hat tip to Monkey Girl).

Labels: Blogging

posted by Eric Turkewitz
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Comments:

"Complicating the issue for The Original Angry is that he uses a pseudonym. Assuming he could find out who Angriest is and bring a suit, how can he ever prove he was damaged?"

I don't understand why this is a problem. There are several theories he could use where his anonymity doesn't matter at all. Damage to the reputation of his "persona" is still damage to his reputation. If Mark Twain had sued someone for defamation, it wouldn't have mattered that the defendant was talking trash about "Mark Twain" when the plaintiff's "real" name was Samuel Clemens.

Angry may also have a claim for trademark infringement (confusingly similar names) and/or for "typosquatting." He might be able to obtain ownership of Angriest's domain name via ICANN's process. I don't generally do trademark law, but it seems to me (on the basis of almost no evidence other than gut feel) that there would be a likelihood of confusion, which is generally the touchstone.

Finally, if he's not seeking money damages, but just transfer of the domain, he may not need to prove much, if anything, in the way of actual damages.

# posted by  Elizabeth : September 06, 2007 2:24 PM

 

Mark Twain had a commercial element to it. He was being paid for his writings.

But here, we have two people who have no ads on their sites so they can't be losing any actual income.

As I said, this isn't my area of law. I just saw an interesting dispute and legal issue, and am wondering how any damage in such an environment could be measured beyond having the domain name taken away from the interloper.

# posted by  Eric Turkewitz : September 06, 2007 2:49 PM

 

Eric,

As a person whose firm has a blog with a name that is similar to another legal blog, I say that everyone should just live with the fact that sometimes these things happen. We secured our name not knowing about the other blog, because at the time it did not exist. Does it matter that the names are similar? Not at all.. Why? Because in the legal industry everything is similar when you are talking about the same area of law. You can only say that you can help someone pursue justice in so many ways. It all boils down to the integrity and personality of the lawyer the client is choosing. If you have a good track record, come across as honest, ethical, sincere, and earnest about helping a victim pursue justice, it does not matter that someone else has a similar name. My opinion may be in the minority of the legal arena, but it is just that, my opinion.

Thanks for sharing this on your blog and giving me the oppty to chime in with my opinion.

Juliet
www.whistleblowerlawblog.com

# posted by  Juliet Sallette : September 06, 2007 9:21 PM

 

It's a friggin blog. Who really cares? Jesus.

# posted by  Anonymous : September 07, 2007 9:19 AM

 

Really, it shouldn't matter at all. Pharmacists can be angry, and one apparently is, whereas the other seemingly thinks they are more so. In the existing public health arena there are a lot of frontline runners, and they all have their individual rights to being angry, angrier than angry, etc. but there is doubt whether any 'one' could be 'angriest', as who is to measure and determine the depth of rage, even though some may think their emotion is the nth above another's and claim that apellation? In this country, we all have the rights of freedom, etc. pursuit of happiness, and undoubtedly in this, there are some still trying to reach a plateau of 'happiness', so of course some will consider their aspect superlative to others. As mentioned, perhaps there are others in healthfields that are frustrated, and perhaps there are even those that are 'happy', 'happier', but it again would be doubtful that an individual can claim 'happiest', and anyway, whoever they are would not work in the fields of helping others maintain the modicum of that state of well-being called 'health'...

# posted by  Anonymous : December 22, 2007 6:34 AM

 

Hi ,

Thanks " Juliet " .
I'm totally agree with your opinion .
With best wishes ,

Lorra.

# posted by  Lorra : July 17, 2008 10:36 AM

 

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