Distinguishing Panavision And Bensusan :: Legal Essays

Distinguishing Panavision And BensusanThe law regarding legal power determination was cold from crystal clear even before the internet came of age, and chat ups are instantly having a difficult time reconciling the purposeful availment and related make tastes utilize in traditional jurisdiction analyses with the new paradigms in education transfer made possible by the internet, and in particular by the World Wide Web (WWW). These difficulties are apparent in Panavision, Intl. L.P. v. Toeppen, 938 F. Supp 616 (C.D. Cal. 1996), and Bensusan eating place Corp. v. King, 937 F. Supp. 295 (S.D.N.Y. 1996). Both cases involved hall suss out infringement and dilution suits stemming from the alleged use of the trademark on the WWW. Each court came down differently on the jurisdiction issue, and rightly so, but neither courts analysis was very satisfying when bingle attempts to distinguish the two cases. In Toeppen, the defendant had formed a computer program to find prominent inte rpreted trademarks which had not yet been registered as internet addresses, and register them as his own, with the expectation that he could sell them at a unassailable profit to the owner of each mark should that owner desire to do business on the internet using that internet address. The court used a three-part test for specific jurisdiction, the first part of which was the purposeful availment test, which in turn became an effects test when the claim is in the nature of a tort. After deciding that the claim was tort-like, the court used the effects test and plant that Toeppens acts were 1) intentional, 2) aimed at California, and 3) caused foreseeable harm to the plaintiff. This was at the heart of the courts reason out in exercising jurisdiction. The facts in Bensusan start out very lots like Toeppen, but diverge at a point, resulting in a decision to decline to exercise jurisdiction. In Bensusan, which proceeded Toeppen by ten days, the defendant, a Missouri jazz club, had s et up a web scallywag the contents of which contained an allegedly infringing use of the plaintiffs trademark, The Blue Note. The plaintiff, owner of the mark for a New York jazz club, wanted the New York district court to interpret state law so that it could exercise jurisdiction everyplace the Missouri club. It refused to do so because, under a similar effects test to that used in Toeppen (the court here also found the claim to be in the nature of a tort), there was no foreseeable harm to the plaintiff.