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Microcap & Penny Stocks : AFSI Asia4Sale: When is an IPO not an IPO? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Auric Goldfinger who wrote (1)	2/19/2000 1:48:00 PM
From: Sir Auric Goldfinger	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13

Serial Metataggers! AOL, AMZN, YHOO and WMT need to see this: "2.1.4. Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. AsiaFocus International, Inc. (Feb. 2, 1998)22. (point is that Aol.Asia4sale et al as URLs are doing exactly the same this as AsiaFocus was doing and the same people are behind both companies, even though te fine has not been paid) It is the first legal ruling resulting in a cash award23. Facts : Playboy sued the operators of now-defunct Web sites for using "Playboy" and "Playmate" in their URLs (<www.asianplaymates.com> and <www.playmates-asian.com>), in the site itself, and in the meta-tags24. The sites were primarily designed as "click-through" sites, meant to capture traffic, then earn money by people clicking on banners to porn destinations. Complaint: federal trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, federal trademark dilution, common law trademark infringement and common law unfair competition. Decision: the court found "a strong likelihood that the consuming public would believe that the defendants' Web site was sponsored by or somehow affiliated with [Playboy] (...)25" and therefore granted the federal trademark infringement cause of action. It also concluded the defendants were liable for dilution of Playboy's trademarks. It subsequently awarded the plaintiff statutory damages of $3,000,000. This case is very similar to Playboy v. Calvin Designer Label, except for the cyberstuffing that was used in the former case. It involved competitors using plaintiff's trademarks for metatagging as well as other purposes. columbia.edu "