"Ninth Circuit Curtails Ability to Challenge 'Gripe Sites'"
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, April 21, 2005
Companies are increasingly being confronted with so-called “gripe sites” — unauthorized websites that not only criticize the company or its products, but also use the company’s own trademark as part of the website’s domain name. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that the noncommercial use of a trademark as the domain name of a gripe site does not constitute infringement under the Lanham Act. The court’s decision removed an important argument on which plaintiffs rely in such cases and split from an earlier Fourth Circuit decision.
