people, raised $30 million in its first round of venture capital financing this week.

Inflection.com owns Archives.com, and PeopleSmart.com, which aggregate public records and data from

past and present, and turns those results into useable, and possibly actionable, data.

PeopleSmart.com, the actual engine, combines contact information, public records, and social profiles and

pools that data from hundreds of sources into a search-able, search engine style platform.

This week, venture capital entities got in on the fun as Matrix Partners and Sutter Hill Ventures participated

in the 30 million dollar funding episode.

Matrix Partners have offices in California, Massachusetts, New York, India and China and has previously

invested in firms suchs as; Apple, Sandisk, Veritas, Sycamore Networks, Phone.com, Starent Networks,

JBoss and Gilt Groupe.

Sutter Hill Ventures was founded in 1964, and has invested in; Network Appliance, Legato, Data Domain,

Alteon, Linear Technology, nVidia, BroadVision, Shutterfly and QuinStreet to name a few.

The new Inflection search engine’s stated mission is to transform the public records industry and convince

you of it with a free 7 day trial and then $39.95 per year after that.

Inflection was founded four years ago by brothers Brian and Andrew Monahan. Brian, supposedly started

the search idea in his Harvard dorm room and his brother helped bootstrap it, to get it going.

The business seems to have been a very profitable venture, as “personal data searching” has gained

momentum over  the past 4 years; This is most likely due to the increase in popularity with social media

outlets as well.

So how does this search engine work?

The historical records are made available through Inflection’s website; Archives.com and current records

are accessed through PeopleSmart.com.

They claim that this will all be privacy friendly.

PeopleSmart currently hosts 250 million+ social profiles, and 500 million public records, and an unspecified

amount of contact information for a percentage of U.S. households.
 
Some of the PeopleSmart features listed are: An email plug-in which they portray as “caller ID for your

inbox,” which will allow you to view a sender’s social profiles and photos with every email. Then,

PeopleSmart subscribers can use anonymous emails to make their email listings private, then it will relay

messages on behalf of its users; much like a secretary.

Theoretically, you will have “Control of Records” which PeopleSmart claims will allow users to manage their

listings online, submit corrections, and remove any information they don’t want people to see.
In addition, PeopleSmart claims it can search the actual court archives to retrieve and return court records.

They feel this is a good move based upon the idea that “people searching” currently appears to have large

verticals in the online search market.

Based upon some recent stats, 57% of adult Internet users use search engines to find information about

themselves online, another 46% of users search online to find info about other people from their past.

This is up from 36% from this type of searching in 2006. Traditionally this information has been highly

fragmented, and given the nature of the type of data, it is understandable why.

To me this begs the question, “Is this a good idea?”.

This information is for the most part, public knowledge and accessible already, they are simply making it

easier to access from a central location and dumbing it down so anyone can access it.
 
While I support free access of information and vehemently oppose censorship, except when it comes to

children, I have to question the motives at work, both by the provider and the user.

The search engine is not free like Google, it is only free for 7 days, then it is $39.95 per year.

To some in this economy, that might as well be $400 per year; that will remove the financially impacted

person’s ability to benefit from this searching, so apparently not every one will be able to use it.

Also, the “anonymous” ability by peoplesmart users, seems to leave open the ability for the bad guys to

hide even better for $39.99 per year, and remove crucial information from online sources that previously

they had no idea how to get rid of.

How will this interact with the “other” search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo? How will the results be

handled? Depending on how its implemented, I can see “back dooring” and “black hat”possibilities already

forming.

Possibly this could even start an “innovation war” like what happened with Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

I speculate that Intellius.com or similar currently existing person search tools are not going to just let

themselves get put out of business; they will have to address this new player head-on to stay relevant.

The only problem is that instead of playing with cool tools and pictures, we are now playing with people’s

personal information and privacy.

We will see how this develops over the coming months, but I remain apprehensive, to say the least.

using its logo in a television ad that began running this week.  The media will often use corporate logos

and/or trademarks in stories under the assumption that they are protected by “fair use”.

The Minnesota State Fair logo is trademarked and the Minnesota State Fair does not see it as fair use.
Michele Bachmann’s Congress campaign did not ask for permission to use the Minnesota State Fair logo.

The issue is that the State Fair can not endorse any candidate running for political office, so the inference

could be hazardous.

Consider that one of the rights accorded to the owner of a copyright is the right to reproduce or to

authorize others to reproduce the work in copies.

The fair did not give this permission.

This right by the holder is subject to certain limitations found in sections 107 through 118 of the copyright

law (title 17, U. S. Code).  Through much litigation, these sections have come to define “fair use” as it

applies to the law, and this situation.

The first amendment is commonly used to defend non-rights holders use of a given mark, but it will not hold

up in this situation; ‘Fair use’ does not allow the use of someone else’s trademark in a way that

misconstrues the trademark owner’s sponsorship or endorsements.

The State Fair has made it clear that the Fair does not endorse Ms. Bachmann’s or any other political party.

The appearance of the Fair’s logo’s in the advertisement could be seen as an endorsement.

More importantly the political ad criticizes the opponent Tarryl Clark for votes on taxes and flashes the fair

logo at a strategic point.

So what would be fair use?

Under current definitions, to legally use the Fair’s trademark, Ms. Bachmann’s campaign would have had to

establish what the purpose and characterization of the usage is, including whether the use is “commercial”

or nonprofit or educational purposes.
Ms. Bachmann’s campaign would have to prove the nature of the copyrighted work is not at risk.
They would have to quantify the amount and substantiality of the portion they used in relation to the

copyrighted work as a whole, and demonstrate that it is not blatant infringement.
Furthermore, the effect that the usage would have upon the potential market for, or value of, the

copyrighted work, and if this market is impacted.
Last they would have to draw distinctions between fair use and infringement and make sure it is easily

defined; there is no provision to allow a specific number of words, lines, or notes that can be used without

permission.

The biggest mistake that most people make is that simply acknowledging the source of the copyrighted

material is not a substitute for obtaining permission.
Many web sites put a simple disclaimer at the bottom of a page and assume they have done their due

diligence to establish fair use; that would be a mistake.

Ms. Bachmann’s campaign still believes it has a right to use the mark in the capacity they were using it, but

out of respect for the event, they have removed the logo.

In a recent court case however, the burden of proof against fair use may fall on the mark holder and not the

infringer.

Amazingly. to address which party has the burden of establishing nominative fair use, the U.S. Court of

Appeals for  the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court and determined that the party charging trademark

infringement has the burden to prove a likelihood of confusion. Specifically in the case, Toyota Motor Sales,

U.S.A., Inc. v. Tabari., Case No. 07-55344 (9th. Cir., July 8, 2010) (Kozinski, C.J.)(Fernandez, J. concurring).   

Toyota sued two independent auto brokers over trademark infringement for the unauthorized use of the

Lexus mark. The two auto brokers specialize in selling Lexus vehicles. They websites in question are: buy-a-

lexus.com and buyorleaselexus.com.

Initially the court found for Toyota, but on appeal, the court determined that the defendants had presented

a compelling fair use defense to the district court.

Toyota argument centered around the use of the word “lexus” in their domain name. They stated that this

was unnecessary, since the website could have used a different name; especially one that does not use the

Lexus mark. Furthermore, it could be suggested that the website appears to be endorsed by the trademark

holder. The Ninth Circuit rejected these arguments. The court held that it is nearly impossible to let

customers know that they are brokers of Lexus cars without mentioning the word Lexus.

Also rejected was the argument that the defendant’s websites appeared to be endorsed by Lexus.

The court determined that a reasonable customer going to the websites would not be misdirected that the

website is sponsored by Toyota.
The outcome is that they defined that the Lanham Act always places the burden of proving likelihood of

confusion on the party charging infringement.

Any defendant seeking to assert nominative fair use as a defense need only show that it used the mark to

refer to the trademarked item.
The burden then returns to the holder to demonstrate a likelihood of confusion.

In light of this, it almost seems as though Ms. Bachmann’s campaign has a shot at fair use. 

They were merely referencing the fair, and under this new definition perhaps they were using it properly?

However, we will never know since they voluntarily removed the logo and the issue has now dropped.

One thing is for sure, the case for due diligence is made on these two issues.

Directors.
They hope to fill this position with those who may be interested in helping to develop policy, and are able to

serve on ICANN’s Board of Directors.

If you are reading this, you may qualify. Here are the requirements: you must be an Internet user who does

not represent a particular government, corporate or non-profit entity.

You will be the voice for the average everyday Internet user and try to represent the view of individuals who

often simply feel they don’t have a voice in policy formation.

You should have a broad international perspective and a background in Internet users’ interests, consumer

policy and/or civil society worldwide.

If you are interested, you can obtain more information by writing ICANN’s Board Candidate Evaluation

Committee at BCEC-Request@icann.org. The deadline to apply for the “At-Large Board seat” is September 6,

2010.

Just think, soon after taking your new position at ICANN, you may have to help out the US Government.

The White House has asked ICANN (and other entities) for a meeting to discuss illegal online pharmacies.

ICANN and other companies were asked to send a representative to a meeting on this issue on September

29.

The ICANN new board member deadline is September 6, so barring a long interview and hiring time frame,

you should have a good week to 10 days to “get your feet wet” at ICANN then jam over to the White House

and cure their ills next.

I almost think I see a “Nobel” prize of some sort on the horizon for you next!

Registrars are catching heat for failing to control the activity on domain names registered with them, and

eNom in particular has been singled out.

ENom, who is essentially the world’s second-largest domain name registrar, has been accused recently of

playing host to an inordinate amount of what could be described as “malicious” websites.
Possibly coincidentally, ENom seems to be the preferred domain name registrar for pharmaceutical

spammers as well.

ICANN is currently looking into the issue and awaiting eNom’s response with regard to questions about
some eNom resellers who seem to be violating ICANN rules. They are accused of allowing customers to

provide false Whois database information, not following ICANN deletion policy and not in compliance with

reseller obligations.

ICANN’s main concerns are centered around the idea that scammers are abusing the domain name

registration system to hide domain name servers to make it difficult to put illegal networks of hacked, botnet

computers out of operation.

This is a great issue to show ICANN how you can help, and get in good with the White House.

So get your applications submitted and think about how you can help ICANN, the White House and maybe

even eNom get through this rough time.

Name Administration is a Cayman Islands based company, that makes money from trading in and displaying advertisements on its massive network of domain names.

Normally, this type of business is not the expected winner in an escalation case.

Consider that Bioshock.com was acquired by Name Administration in December 2004. Coincidentally, this acquisition ocurred a shortly after rumors of Bioshock the game began circulating in October of that year. 

Name Administration made sure to note that the term Bioshock is wanted by more entities than Take-Two; Johnson & Johnson applied for the name at one point for their skin cleanser, and some companies nutritional products.

Perhaps most confusing is that Take-Two holds the trade mark registration for the Bioshock, but it was filed almost a year after the actual domain name was registered.

This fact assured that the TM could not serve as prior trade mark right to the domain name in this case.
Factor in that earlier this year, Take-Two’s lawyers acted to have the website transferred away from Name Administration. 

This then led to arbitration proceedings before the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in May of 2010.

WIPO decided that Take-Two failed to prove that bioshock was being used in bad faith.

WIPO added that even if Name Administration had been made aware of the BioShock game it would still have been insufficient to establish bad faith.

Currently the use of the bioshock.com does necessarily infringe on the underlying trademark since it is associated with elements other than computer games.

To make their argument, Take-Two would have to have proven the following:

1. Prove that the intent of registering Bioshock.com was identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or a service that Take-Two has a trademark to.
2. Demonstrate that Name Administration has no rights to or legitimate interests with respect to bioshock.com.
3. Show that the Bioshock website was registered and being used in bad faith.

WIPO agreed with Take Two on point one, but not two and three.

What is the outcome?

Take-Two will be forced to continue using bioshockgame.com as their domain to represent their game.

I would not feel too sorry for Take Two, however, as they are not doing an effective job at protecting their mark.

Consider that a quick search reveals that at the time of this writing, bioshock.mobi is still available; purchasing domains like this would demonstrate that Take-Two was actually interested in protecting its mark, and acting in good faith for the next time they need to escalate.

Amazingly, for their next release, bioshock2 is squatted all over the place as well; at the time of this writing, bioshock2.biz and bioshock2.mobi were still available.

Worse than that, bioshockgame.net, .org, .biz, .info,.mobi and .us are all available, and this is now their core name to represent the bioshock game.

I know it looks and seems easy, but intellectual property is best left to professionals, and the expense, in the long run, will seem cheap in comparison to the loss.

In a surprising change, Yahoo and Bing are partnering up to take on Google.
Bing, to those who remember, used to be called “Live Search” and as part of the new deal is now going to power Yahoo searches.

Yahoo and Microsoft have been conspiring to take more of the market that Google has seemingly dominated  in recent memory.

This new partner ship between the two search engines, is projected to capture 31 percent of the market share, while Google maintains an approximate 85 percent share.

Despite this change in services, Yahoo insists that search functionality will not change.

For example, webmasters will still be able to use the “Build your Own Search Service”, Yahoo! Query Language, and Site Explorer.

In a less popular change, developers will now have to pay for utilizing the tools which used to be for free.

This deal only covers the search results portion of Yahoo services; other services will not be affected by the change except one; The only real casualty will be Yahoo SearchMonkey.

The Search Monkey service will shut down on October 1st and any associated third party custom result applications, infobar applications, and data services will also be affected.

What does this mean to the end user? You have a little over a month to say goodbye to the monkey.
The final breakdown of the Yahoo-Microsoft agreement will go as follows: back-end crawling, listing, and ranking technologies that generate search results will be handled by Microsoft. Presentation of the results, save a  “Powered by Bing” message at the bottom of the results page, will be handled by Yahoo.

Visually, it should improve searching.

Not to sit back and watch this happen, Google recently acquired Like.com, a visual search engine website for a rumored $100 million.

The idea it appears is to enhance Google’s initiatives towards visual searching.

Like.com’s searching technology, when added to the Google line up, has the real possibility of transforming online shopping to resemble more social media than e commerce.

Theorized changes include; ability to upload personalized photos with the intent to allow a search engine to virtually try on clothing and pre-fit and pre-try on color and style combinations for the best possible outcome.

This is not new technology per-SE, as Like.com made its debut in 2004 as Riya.

Its attraction is the algorithms that were developed to search for things like bags, clothes, shoes, and jewelry.

Essentially it can understand what “red shoes” and “black skirts” look like, and the algorithm cross-matches items to uncover the right combination for the desired look.

As the Yahoo modification is slated to take as long as until 2012 to complete, Google is looking to implement its changes in a more timely manner, so we may see an easier online shopping Christmas season.

One thing these changes have in common, is that visual elements in our searching have become more desirable than text based functionality, and this will prove more and more challenging to enforce going forward.

To me, this highlights the need for professional enforcement and monitoring and just reinforces what many of us already know;  the only constant on the Internet is change.

search results and market share, the fighting is over the very speed at which you can receive any data.

Recently, Google and Verizon have made a compromise over net neutrality and the eventual rules to follow.

This “regulation” over the way online traffic is handled has divided the internet. Despite the compact made

between Google and Verizon, Facebook, Ebay, Skype and Amazon, have spoken out against the pact, and

stated their unwillingness to accept these new rules.

As part of the new pact, Verizon acknowledged it is prepared to accept restrictions if they would have the freedom to charge Internet companies a surcharge to have their services carried on a new faster channel that would run parallel to the existing Internet.

As a compromise, they would insist upon no restrictions on their ability to block or slow services on their mobile network.

Google however lost some former allies in the longtime campaign for net neutrality.

Google, along with a collection of public interest groups, are part of the Open Internet Coalition.

Google’s partners in this coalition criticized the company for putting together a proposal that they said

betrayed their previously agreed upon net neutrality principles.  Amazon and eBay, appeared to be

concerned with the Verizon and Google alliance, but did not make a statement in this regard.

Facebook however has made a point publicly to part ways with Google. In a statement, Facebook, has

suggested that exempting wireless networks from net neutrality rules, is the wrong approach.

This begs the question from some us; what is network neutrality?

To summarize, network neutrality is a principle based on the idea that Internet service providers (ISPs)

should be required to treat all web traffic equally. This means that regardless of content type or origin, there

is no control over the data passing from content providers to end users. ISPs should not block any lawful

content or control their infrastructure to preferentially deal with any kind of data.

Proponents to the regulation say that exponential growth in usage, specifically around video applications,

rising peer-to-peer file sharing, and higher infrastructure costs means their business has become more

costly.

Their argument centers around the ability to control the data rates for the various types of content;

tightening the pipeline for individuals and slowing speeds at particular times, and deciding which content

gets bandwidth preference will allow the delegation of what they deem as more urgent applications.

Opponents to the regulation, contend that everyone has the right to open access to the Internet. They state

their concern that any erosion of net neutrality would usher in an era of tiered service, where

telecommunication companies would monopolize the Internet, and personal users will be throttled down to

dial up speed. The fear is that these same companies would be allowed to strong arm users to pay a

premium for barely usable service and force out any new competition. Most people believe this move

would freeze innovation, and basically create an unnecessary toll system for regulated access, and remove

the freedom that exists online currently.

In addition, many industry groups see any government intervention as the first step toward government

control of the Internet.

The next logical question would seem to be, how will this war end?

Sides have changed since the inception of this idea. For example, Google who was once an advocate of

network neutrality has switched sides with Verizon to embrace a shared vision of control. Their vision of

control does not extend to mobile traffic and certain content that benefits their companies.

Amazingly, and temporarily, the Government has essentially switched sides by calling off negotiations for

the time being. The FCC stated they did not feel the framework was properly in place to preserve the

freedom of the Internet as it exists.

A truce it seems, is the end of the discussion for now, but rest assured this issue is far from over.

people are still slow to understand is the power that these applications hold.

To most people, these social media sites are nothing more than a way to stay in touch with your “BFF” or a

great place to use the “LOL” abbreviation.

The problem starts when this assumption affects your decision making process, and the value of a well

developed social media build is either discounted or dismissed.

The hidden benefit is that these sites are also a powerful traffic driving tool at your disposal, and most of us

overlook this importance or are ignorant on how to best use this to our advantage.

I have heard the dismissive statements made about social media that “its just for teens” or “its unprofessional” or “I

can pay a kid $5 an hour after school to do that.

Those statements are the sound of defeat and ignorance, and a strategy of this nature will guarantee that

you will be watching the competition consistently place ahead of you on the search engines.

For those of us who understand how useful social media can be, we may have a decent build in place or are

planning a strategic build.

If this is the case, I will give you some tips on how to make your strategy more effective.

First, you can use social media simply to drive traffic to your site.

This effort results in more leads and higher conversion rates; keep in mind that this essentially is your demostrable ROI, and shows that your effort pays off in real revenue beyond the ranking and traffic gains.

This is the type of data that most business oriented social media builds will need to show the people who control the budgets, to get approval for expansion.

We can accomplish this result by engaging our social media visitors and utilizing things like user reviews and commentary to encourage visitors to voluntarily share contact information.

By effectively utilizing “how-to’s,” contests, giveaways and content that gives the impression of “something for nothing”, you actually encourage return visitors, by your posts. Make sure to have a place or link to add the visitor as a friend or follower for your preferred social media outlet.

You will see your online following grow and your marketing will get a huge bump as well.

Next, lets make sure that we are actually incorporating our website into the social media build and incorporating these goals into our social media strategy. This is accomplished by always having a defined purpose and goals in mind when writing and adding content.

Remember, content is king, and with your social media “subjects” spreading around the marketing that you want “out there” the benefits of the build are realized sooner than later.

We need to remember to carefully tailor our social media strategy to fit these well-defined goals; conversely by having them run independently and in two different directions is fruitless and wasting both your time and resources.

Finally, we can use social media to drive down negative results and drive up positive ones on search engines.

If you are having trouble with a particularly difficult to remove enforcement or negative commentary on the search engine results, then a properly utilized social media build may be the answer to your problems.

Utilizing targeted keywords and back-linking, we can professionally build a social media campaign to arrange search results the way you envision them. When the followers or friends are of sufficient quantity on the social media outlet, they are a great ranking builder as well.

Keeping visitors regularly returning to your site, drives up the traffic count too, which when strategically planned, has a reciprocating benefit.

Essentially, a social media build could be the very thing you have been waiting for to get your results more in line with your marketing strategy and sales goals.

Keep in mind that even if you don’t build a social media presence, your competition most likely will.

Recently, however, a “New York” sized lawsuit was brought against NewYorkNewYork.com Inc. by MGM, the owner of the New York, New York, attraction casino.

This lawsuit is around the contention that for violating the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, the company known as NewYorkNewYork.com Inc. will pay $100,000 for violating the law, and then pay MGM Resorts International  $101,000 in damages.

In addition, the possible rights to the domain name newyorknewyork.com may now reside with MGM, pending further litigation.

To date, the lawsuit is in MGM’s favor but pending the securing of counsel, the defendant promises to return to court.

The Judge in this round of litigation, based his decision around the idea that the case was well proven that both plaintiff and defendant are competitors on the Internet.

It was further established that the defendant registered and used NewYorkNewYork.com with the bad faith intent to profit from it, by using a known trademark in a manner confusingly similar to plaintiff’s marks; essentially demonstrating bad faith usage of NewYorkNewYork.com to obtain web traffic.

The ACPA, and most other legal entities, use certain criteria to determine whether “bad faith” applies; first and foremost is to determine if the intention to profit from the use of the domain exists.

Then it needs to be established whether the domain name registrant has trademark rights or other intellectual property rights in the dispute; if this can be determined then many times the dispute can end here, if not then there are other factors that can be used.

For example; by looking at the domain, you can usually see if the registrant has a non-commercial or fair use right to use the domain, or whether the registrant’s intent is to divert consumer’s from the trademark owner’s site to the registrant’s site either for commercial gain, to possibly dilute or disparage the trademark owner’s mark through consumer confusion.

This can also be a situation where the registrant’s site is either sponsored by the trademark owner, and / or whether the registrant offers the domain for sale to the actual trademark owner.

In addition, if they intend to profit from the sale, display a pattern of conduct, provide false contact information, own multiple domain names which are similar to famous or distinctive marks, and how the trademark is used ( or misused) in the domain.

With these factors in mind, MGM felt confident that bad faith applied here.

The lawsuit alleged that “cybersquatting” was engaged in by using the name itself and to compound the offense, there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate customer confusion on the California based website.

Allegedly, The website included an image of MGM’s New York, New York, with no disclaimer of “no affiliation” with MGM.

It was further contended that when users clicked on a banner, they were mis-directed to a third-party Web site which enabled website users to book hotel reservations at competing Las Vegas hotels.

The bad faith use argument starts to become painfully obvious when you consider that resort and hotel services sold on the site were not for the city or state of New York but for Las Vegas and casino services.

The defense argued that the domain name was acquired about 1996, before the hotel-casino opened.

They also declared the intent was to pay tribute to the Frank Sinatra song “New York, New York” and create a website promoting and focused on New York City, along with raising money to benefit 9/11 victims’ families.

It was further argued that the site actually promoted the MGM property with customer confusion instead working in MGM’s favor due to a link to an Expedia hotel room-booking engine.

This booking application was supposedly authorized by MGM Resorts as well.

While this sounds like a decent defense and an admirable venture, bad faith use is very clear.

Its up to you New York.

Recently, Budweiser the beer manufacturer and The Iguana Mexican Grill out of Oklahoma City, found out

that they had one thing in common; they both lost battles over Trademark recently.

A European high court ruled that Anheuser-Busch cannot trademark “Budweiser” in Europe, and similarly in

the US, it was found that “Taco Tuesday” was the sole property of Taco John’s.

Anheuser-Busch applied to use the Budweiser trademark in the EU back in 1996 and Anheuser-Busch’s

application was promptly rejected. The Czech Brewery Budejovicky Budvar instead had its rights upheld due

to a long history with the Budweiser mark in Germany and Austria.

This has created a disconcerting precedent for Budweiser in the EU.

Then, in an unrelated move, Taco John’s is ordering owners of Iguana Mexican Grill in Oklahoma City to quit

using the phrase “Taco Tuesday” to promote its weekly $1 dollar taco nights; “Taco Tuesday” was

introduced in 2009 for Iguana Mexican Grill’s first anniversary and has been a popular event ever since.

While the Taco Tuesday phrase can’t be used by Iguana Mexican Grill due to the challenge by Taco John’s

chain, the actual local event will go on.  Even with the “cease and desist” ordered by attorneys with Taco

John’s to quit using the phrase “Taco Tuesday” for the weekly $1 taco promotions, event will be renamed

and the price will remain along with Iguana’s other promotions.

Also ongoing, Anheuser-Busch is appealing to the Court of Justice of the European Union,  to argue

that Budvar, the Czech mark holder, should have submitted evidence of its renewal of the Budweiser mark

at an earlier stage in the case. Anheuser-Busch is not getting any traction with this tactic, as the

Luxembourg-based Court of Justice rejected this argument and dismissed the case as it stands today. The

court contends that adding that any new rules relating to production of evidence cannot be applied

retroactively.

This is not the news that Anheuser-Busch was hoping to hear.

So this brings us back to the taco world.

Taco John’s which is a Cheyenne, Wyoming based entity, has 425 locations; they stand by the fact that “Taco Tuesday” is an important mark for Taco Johns.

They further state that they have owned the trademark since 1989 and is as much an icon as “potato ole’s.”

An interesting fact to note is that “Taco Tuesday” was first used by the Taco John’s chain in February 1982.

However, that may not be the earliest recorded use of the term; a Laguna Beach, California restaurant named Tortilla Flats, owns www.tacotuesday.com and stands by its claims that Tortilla Flats started using the phrase way back in 1976!

So far, the USPTO records only confirm that Taco John’s registered the Taco Tuesday phrase in 1989 and as a

result, the Trademark still applies in all states except New Jersey.

At this time there does not appear to be a current battle between Tortilla Flats and Taco John’s, but that

does not mean there will not be a future challenge to the mark; “Taco Tuesday” is a more or less a coined

phrase now; could this open the door for a “fair use” suit? I doubt that challenge is far behind given the

recent litigation’s.

As for for Anheuser-Busch, they will keep up the fight against Budejovicky Budvar over the “Bud” mark and

the battle is still pending. The precedent set by the European ruling is a dangerous one. This is the kind of

“foothold” that trademark holders hate, as it unnecessarily complicates what should be a simple case of

protecting your business.

Since the European Court of Justice acts as the EU’s supreme legal venue, this likely signals an end to

Anheuser-Busch’s European battle for the Budweiser name for now.

Beer and Taco lunch specials on Tuesday everywhere seem to be weathering the storm fine, as my own

personal research has revealed, but I will stay on this issue every Tuesday to be sure.

Speaking of asking, Ask.com relaunches its search engine to take a portion of Google’s traffic.

As expected, most people limit their search options to the top three engines: Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.  Ask.com however recently announced that it will be offering question-and-answer services once again in a bid to catch attention by those same search engines.

With the Google Mayday update, this type of fresh content could be just what the doctor ordered to rejuvenate Ask.com’s traction.

The irony of ask.com using the Google search engine to gain traffic against Google is undeniable.

Many in the industry are asking though if it is too little, too late, considering that Bing and Yahoo are also fighting for marketshare by making their own changes.

Consider that Yahoo is now displaying Microsoft Bing organic and paid search listings. This move could account for up to 25 percent of its search traffic in the U.S. as part of a 10-year pact to take market share from the Google search engine juggernaut.

Under the agreement, Microsoft agreed to work with Yahoo and pay 88 percent of traffic acquisitions costs for the first five years under a 10-year deal. For Yahoo’s end, they will provide the global sales force for both companies’ search ads.

Some figures to consider: Google still holds a 66 percent search share and combined, Bing and Yahoo together would take approximately a 30 percent share. This Bing-Yahoo partnership accounts for approximately 25 percent of Yahoo’s search traffic with the idea to partner against Google in the search market.

Both Bing and Yahoo! laid out the plan for integration back in May of this year, and the organic search listings will be powered by Microsoft in August or September, and the paid searches will following in October.

Yahoo and Bing have been working the PR end to ease the transition to Microsoft’s adCenter, and they have been diligently working with customers to prepare for the algorithm change. It seems that has been a common theme in 2010. One technique is to align your search crawler polices for the msnbot/Bingbot and Yahoo’s bots.  Bing’s has instructions on its new webmaster tools and policies, it is worthwhile to do some checking to avoid any problems like the ones created by the Google Mayday update.

The Mayday update was sufficient evidence that Google has been doing its best to stay ahead of the competitor’s changes.

Consider also, that soon after Bing introduced its popular graphic background images, in June, Google introduced the option of a colorful background too. These changes and the benefits for the end user, are obvious; Bing has flight search and prediction tools that reveal price fluctuations for certain routes, and advises customers whether to buy or wait.

In addition, Bing Health uses data from online sources like the Mayo Clinic and Health-wise.

Google is still the main search engine as evidenced by the market-share but many users are using Bing  thanks to its many new features and look; 12.7 percent in June, and growing from 8 percent, since Bing was introduced in May 2009.

Bing has invested billions of dollars in computing centers necessary to power search and advertising systems as well as cash-back programs on purchases.

Bing has secured partners willing to promote Bing ahead of Google and as a result. Microsoft’s online services division lost $2.36 billion on revenue of $2.2 billion. Innovations like the Bing travel search engine, tying Bing tools to social networking, image searching and even buying start-ups have spent this investment money to varying degrees of success.

This war is heating up and the winners so far are the end users; we are seeing easier more accurate searching, better and fresher data, and more options in the way we access this information.

It will be interesting to see what “weapons” the war develops next.