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6 Pitt. J. Tech. L. & Pol'y 1 (2005-2006)

handle is hein.journals/pittjtlp6 and id is 1 raw text is: Volume VI - Article I

SEARCHING FOR INITIAL INTEREST CONFUSION AND TRADEMARK PROTECTION IN CYBERSPACE
David M Fritch*
Fall 2005
Copyright C University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Journal of Technology Law and Policy
I. Introduction
The modem Internet enables millions of people to communicate with one another and to access vast
amounts of information from around the world.' Due to the enormous repository of information the Internet
makes available online, some have compared the Internet to an immense library with no card catalog.2
While web users can generally access web sites directly with a domain name, the sheer size of the Internet
makes it difficult for the average web surfer to locate the majority of web sites unless they know the web site
address beforehand.3
Specific web sites and information can be difficult to locate, making Internet search engines crucial to
web user accessibility and manageability. The size of the Internet and the web-surfing community, coupled
with its increasing importance as a tool of modem commerce and a staple of modem life, creates fierce
Law Clerk to the Honorable Stanley R. Chesler, U.S.D.J., United States District Court, District of New Jersey.
J.D., summa cum laude,Villanova University School of Law; M.S., University of Colorado; M.A., Fairleigh
Dickenson University; B.S., Boston University. The author would like to dedicate this article to the late Professor
Steven P. Frankino, former Professor and Dean Emeritus of Villanova Law School. Professor Frankino's brilliance,
friendship, and counsel have guided and inspired me, and countless others whose lives he had touched during his
long and distinguished legal career, and his untimely loss will be deeply felt by all of us. I am sure that I speak for
all his former students and colleages in thanking him for allowing us all to reap the benefits of his endless wisdom.
We will be forever indebted to him for allowing us to share, in some small way, in his undying legacy. Were it not
for his tireless efforts to educate and inspire generations of new lawyers and lawyers-to-be, this article and many
others would certainly not have been possible.
'Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 850 (1997).
2 F. Gregory Lastowka, Search Engines Under Siege: Do Paid Placement Listings Infringe Trademarks?, 14 NO. 7 J.
PROPRIETARY RTS. 1, 1 (2002).
3 F. Gregory Lastowka, Note, Search Engines, HTML, and Trademarks: What's the Meta For?, 86 VA. L. REv. 835,
835 (2000) (noting that in practice the majority of Web sites get less attention than trees falling soundlessly in a
primordial forest).

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