Entrepreneurship, Second Edition

13.10. The Internet

Internet activity is placing new pressures on intellectual property practice. Uploading and downloading of copyrighted material on the Internet can be copyright infringement. Copyright infringement has also been found in some cases against bulletin board operators and administrators who have received and stored such material.

Domain names are taking on some of the characteristics of trademarks. Further, there have been some instances where a party has incorporated a well-known name or mark of another in his own domain name, resulting in infringement. And there is now a domain name dispute-resolution system offering trademark owners a less expensive alternative to court when pursuing cybersquatters. Webpages can be fraught with IP issues. Google, for example, was sued by Geico because, when a user typed in "Geico" using the Google search engine, Geico's competitors were listed as sponsors. Adware, spyware, pop-up ads, links, and other features of Websites are regularly litigated but often with unpredictable results. Dual-use software—software that has legitimate purposes but that can also be used to download or traffic in protected content—can also raise IP issues. Licensing via the Internet using "click-wrap" agreements can be problematic if not in accordance with general contract law precepts. Finally, the dust has yet to settle on the question of whether a company located in one state can be sued in a distant state merely on account of the company's Website. ...