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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

BlockShopper Settles Dispute With Jones Day

(CN) - A real-estate news site has settled a trademark infringement dispute with Jones Day over the site's practice of linking to the law firm's attorney biographies.

Last April, BlockShopper posted a story entitled "New Jones Day Lawyer Spends $760K on Sheffield" with a link to the bio of the purported attorney in question, Jacob Tiedt. With more than 2,200 attorneys, Jones Day is one of the world's largest firms.

In its lawsuit, Jones Day claimed that the links gave the false impression that the firm sponsors or is affiliated with BlockShopper's site, which is funded through advertising.

U.S. District Judge John Darrah denied BlockShopper's motion to dismiss the case, despite a friend-of-the-court brief filed by digital-rights groups Public Citizen, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Citizen Media Law Project and Public Knowledge.

Two months earlier, Darrah issued an injunction requiring BlockShopper to remove the Jones Day articles until the matter was resolved.

In the settlement, the news site agreed to change how it links to Jones Day's Web site. Instead of using the attorneys' names as anchor text, BlockShopper will reportedly use the full URL. So, rather than writing "Tiedt is an associate," BlockShopper will write "Tiedt (http://www.jonesday.com/jtiedt/) is an associate."

BlockShopper also promised not to use any photographs from Jones Day's site.

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