Today I get to register for classes for next semester! I am very excited about my last year of law school as I will be taking almost entirely elective classes. One of the classes I am excited about is Eric Goldman’s Cyberspace law class. Prof. Goldman is the director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara, a prolific blogger, and a well liked professor. While this will be my first class with Prof. Goldman, I have followed his blog for years and have attended some of his presentations (including one on the legal issues of blogging.)

Last week Prof. Goldman released the final version of his brand spillovers paper (available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1324822 ). I had read and cited an earlier version of the paper in my comment on the Rescuecom decision at Likelihood of Confusion.

I believe Prof. Goldman does an excellent job of describing the dichotomy between how traditional retailers profit from brand spillover while avoiding liability, whereas online intermediaries performing similar functions are often held liable. Prof. Goldman describes how both traditional retailers and online intermediaries are search cost managers and how their decisions on how to organize brands/trademark affect searches. Prof. Goldman argues that the end results in both situations is currently the best alternative available and thus a new policy on online intermediaries trademark liability is needed.

I highly recommend you read the paper for yourself.