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Floyd Davidson wrote: > >In any case, I hope you do understand that _nothing_ we are discussing is > >particular to the web. All of these issues exist in other media, and have > >existed as long as trademarks have existed. > > Does that mean a book entitled "The Smith Barney Book" is also an > infringement? Very likely. > Or that a newspaper or magazine cannot run a column > of critical review entitled "The Smith Barney Column"? Almost certainly. > And 60 Minutes can't title a story "The Smith Barney Story"... This one would probably be OK--largely because it's hard to imagine a context in which it wouldn't be immediately clear that it was _just_ a story done by 60 minutes. (60 minutes doesn't allow others to come in and show their own stories.) No likelihood of confusion, so no infringement. The other two examples are notably different, in that a book entitled "The Smith Barney Book" and a newspaper column entitled "The Smith Barney Column" could _easily_ have Smith Barney as its source. Therefore, we have potential for a likelihood of confusion, and therefore potential for infringement. > Pardon me while I remain skeptical about a web page titled "The Smith > Barney Page" being any different. That's fine, because it isn't different. This example can easily fall into the category of the first two examples you provide. As has been said all along. Determinations of infringement are very fact-bound. So it might be that not all such uses will constitute infringement. Nonetheless some (possibly even many or most) will. -- J. S. Greenfield greeny@nando.net (So what were you expecting? http://www.zynet.com/~greeny A Gorilla?!!) "What's the difference between an orange?"