Jones Day Sues Over Website Posting Attorney Home Purchase Info

Intellectual Property Law

Jones Day Sues Over Website Posting Attorney Home Purchase Info

Posted Sep 11, 2008, 11:08 am CST
By Martha Neil

Jones Day has sued a website that highlights lawyers—even posting their photos and linking to firm biographies—and other professionals who buy and sell their homes in Chicago, Las Vegas, St. Louis and South Florida.

After two Jones Day associates were featured on the BlockShopper site, the Cleveland-based BigLaw firm sued, reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).

It is alleging service mark infringement in the federal lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and also asserts claims for federal false designation of origin and unfair business practices under the Illinois Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, among other issues, the legal publication reports. The suit seeks an injunction, damages and attorney fees.

After a Neal Gerber & Eisenberg associate's home purchase was featured on BlockShopper, managing partner Jerry Biederman says, the law firm is looking into whether the posting violates privacy rights as well as intellectual property rights.

Additional coverage:

Post-Dispatch: "Giant law firm comes to aid of those being scrutinized"

Legal Blog Watch: "Jones Day's 'Gross Abuse of Trademark Law'"

Updated at 11:25 a.m. on Sept. 18, 2008, to include links to subsequent Post-Dispatch article and Legal Blog Watch post.

Comments

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Posted by SAssoc - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours, 54 minutes ago

How could posting home sale/purchase prices be a violation of privacy? This information is a matter of public record. You can search—for instance—the Chicago Tribune website for the same thing.
Posted by Bob - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 9 hours, 51 minutes ago

There is a difference between a public record and a publicized record, but I still don’t see any potential recovery here.

Also, Service Mark infringement? I don’t think anyone is going to confuse Blockshopper with Jones Day.
Posted by Steve - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 8 hours, 20 minutes ago

Is this a creative use of statutes that clearly were not intended to apply to the circumstances? Or is it a large law firm attempting to “leverage” a result by misuse of statutes? My own initial reaction agrees with the other 2 comments. The website being sued is probably making a legal use of public information but someone at the firm decided to use the law to try and obtain a result which was contrary to the intent of the statutory authority being relied upon, in the hope that a judge will feel sympathetic to them. (Does the law firm put pictures of the same people on the internet?)
Posted by MJB - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes ago

I had never heard of BlockShopper. It seems like a useful site. Thanks Jones Day.
Posted by BigLaw Associate - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes ago

I agree that there is a significant difference between “pulic record” and “publicized information.“ It is the same difference between a person with a conviction of record and a person whose name is posted on the sex offender registry. The difference in convenience of access and breadth of dissemination is very real and significant. I just finished clerking for a state supreme court justice who was alarmed to find his home address posted on an Internet site. As information of all types becomes increasingly available on the web, we will all likely become searchable, findable, indexed, and tracked.
Posted by NCLawyer - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 5 hours, 13 minutes ago

I think a law firm is probably entitled to market itself based on the lawyers who actually work there. I’m not sure BlockShopper has the right to market itself by saying, “see who bought homes in these neighborhoods.“ I wouldn’t want my name, picture and address on some real estate site.
Posted by greg - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 4 hours, 53 minutes ago

I Googled a classmate of mine after he left his firm. Imagine my surprise to find a website that said “Midsize firm lawyer Smith buys home for $330K” in large type, and a blurb showing his firm photo, home address and age. Can you imagine some whack job who hates lawyers now having an avenue to specifically target them, and a photo so he can make sure he gets the right person? The Trib website doesn’t go to that depth of information, nor does any other that I am aware of.
Posted by greg - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 4 hours, 49 minutes ago

With regard to your comment, Steve:

My friend’s law firm did post his photo on their site, but most firms that I know of will not post your photo if you request them not to. So he had a choice in that matter. With BlockShopper, he did not have such a choice, and probably doesn’t know that his photo is posted (I haven’t talked to him about that yet). Moreover (a nice legal word), even if someone sees your photo on the firm site, it’s much different than knowing your home address (though a true nutcase could probably follow you home from work, it’s less likely than just showing up at your doorstep IMHO).
Posted by Publicis - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 4 hours, 39 minutes ago

NC lawyer, are you kidding?

BlockShopper isn’t “marketing itself”—it is reporting local news.

Also, it seems if these lawyers don’t want their names and titles and accomplishments and pictures publicized, they shouldn’t have put them on Jonesday.com in the first place.
Posted by Mark Sanchez - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 4 hours, 31 minutes ago

Tell me that “I don’t want” is not the legal argument we are using here. My 3 yr old is learning the unjustifiability of this claim.

As attorneys, do we really have to remind ourselves what “Public” means? And that Publishing Public information is redundant?
Posted by ViolatesOath - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 2 hours, 15 minutes ago

Bringing info and power to the people, is the internet. Lexis has all this and far more, you just have to pay a little. Does Firm sue LN? Nope? Does lawsuit acknowledge how much more LN has?
A divide is in society now, the old power brokers are upset at information being free and accessible.
Public and publicized is irrelevent when professionals abuse power and have access to LN, et all.
Kharma is the new universal medicine. Those who abuse everthing, you have no shadows to hide in anymore.
Judgement is really lacking amoung the power elite these days with the new paradigm shift. Interesting. Good, bad and sure ugly.
Posted by homeowner - 2 months, 1 week, 3 days, 19 minutes ago

Newspapers regularly publish home sale data. You don’t even have to go to Lexis Nexis.
Posted by George Lenard - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 23 hours, 18 minutes ago

So now people who already have a poor opinion of lawyers have two new pieces of data to reinforce their views: (1) some of us are buying castles while many people are losing modest homes to foreclosure; and (2) some of us will file unfounded lawsuits over trivialities.
Posted by UseTheSource - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 22 hours, 40 minutes ago

What interests me is what could JD possibly gain out of this? Diebold like handling results of unpopular info? Seems like a waste.
Perhaps a new enforement of the internet, like the TSA, is coming. Copyright cops, and copyright czar is coming, perhaps some think the war on the internet is the next war on terrorism/fear?
EFF and many computer experts are a new powerful force, with jedi style tricks and values. While some sites are in bad taste of openly taunting people and potential incite to act, those sites have been taken down over time.
Is posting attorneys info like what happened to doctors who performed abortions?
Correlation of data to information of public records is going to be interesting. Google, and a lot of others, might have a interest in this case. Personally, I think real estate is simple financial data2info that is a matter of fact. Republicans should set a better example if they want to keep their political cover over time and to the world.
Posted by CS Lewis - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 7 hours, 7 minutes ago

Communities now are publishing on-line the real estate records of residential properties, including price and name(s) of owners. This information has always been open to the public but seems more intrusive when on-line.
Posted by mfredric - 2 months, 1 week, 2 days, 5 hours, 22 minutes ago

There may be a difference in perception between ‘public’ versus ‘publicized’ records, but it is a distinction of absolutely zero legal significance.
>
As others have already suggested above, this is just like the reaction of the copyright owners who are upset that the costs of reproduction have more or less trended to zero—They used to not worry so much about people copying their stuff when one had to buy a record pressing plant and set up a sales force on the street in order to engage in economically meaningful reproduction and distribution, but that’s all changed now.
>
Just so this transformation of public records from something accessible only after you go down to the courthouse, wait in line, deal with a crabby person behind the counter and pay $0.50 a page to copy, into something that’s on the web 24/7. The nature of the documents hasn’t changed a whit, but the cost of access has dropped to zero. Then, add the wonderful ability of the computer to sift, aggregate, mix publicly available data from two different sources, and suddenly everbody on the street can get the level of intelligence that used to cost others real money to get.
>
In the end, there’s no law against the use of public data—That’s the nature of public data. These guys are just angry that the costs of using it and analyzing it have dropped to near-zero, and thus (in today’s example) the ability to get intel on one’s neighbors is no longer the province of just the rich but all of us.
>
As we said in grade school—Too bad, so sad.

(I haven’t even addressed the obvious 1st Amendment issues—This particular site is a news reporting service reporting legimate news of publicly known events, which trumps any argument of TM infringement, publicity (particularly when the news service uses the very photo you choose to post on a public website to promote yourself!), etc. To suggest prior restraints are appropriate in this case is absurd.)
Posted by SuggestionBox - 2 months, 1 week, 1 day, 11 hours, 19 minutes ago

Some real estate transactions are private to some extent.
Could the website be disclosing private real estate, and be somehow liable?
Charges would be different then?
As to public and publizied, well California laws are copyrighted, and LN is an $$$$ distributor. See EFF deeplinks, ‘The Law is Not Copyrighted.‘ Bad law, like ISO, etc charging on standards, but POINT: things are not as straight and simple as named lawyers write here.
Suggestion: would be great for Abajournal, to have more on open source law, and especially what lawyer needs are not being meet. Ignore PDF and microsoft uglies, known issues, no incentives there. Groklaw is good, perhaps I’ll consider posting there as well. Sophistication in IT is going to be the winning edge, might help for some IT people to know more about legal needs…
Posted by john troll - 2 months, 1 week, 1 day, 6 hours, 58 minutes ago

Every so often the riff raff forget their place. They say or do something in the mistaken belief that their actions or views matter.

When that happens they must be reminded that we are the masters of the universe. We run things. And we are not pleased when the details of our lives are revealed without our permission.
So measures must be taken. Do they bring shame on the legal profession? Do they bring violence to legal doctrines used to justify patently imroper actions?
No matter. Because the riff raff will not be allowed to interrupt the natural order of things.
Posted by Missing the point? - 2 months, 1 week, 9 hours, 3 minutes ago

Aren’t there two different issues here - posting the transaction information vs. posting the photos and links? Of course transaction information is public record and regularly published. But if the site is copying and pasting JD photos or using JD logos and links to indicate source/approval, why shouldn’t JD seek relief?
Posted by associate - 2 months, 1 week, 5 hours, 27 minutes ago

Copying and using my work picture in the course of your business without my permission will get you sued for copyright infringement.
Posted by NObama - 2 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes ago

nothing but sour grapes
Posted by nipsey - 2 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 8 minutes ago

associate, i am not a lawyer and stumbled across this article. if you were involved in a newsworthy event and the local newspaper wanted to report on it, could they not use your work picture in the article under fair use? Arent newspapers full of such fair use? Where do the pictures of people just accused of some crime come from? Now, what is the difference here? To many home sales are newsworthy events, in fact as mentioned they are usually reported in papers (sans pictures). What would prompt you to sue? Because you think you can? I dont get it.
Posted by JJE=NoSystemOrSociety - 2 months, 5 days, 20 hours, 59 minutes ago

Fair use is a affirmative defence. Grr, caution on that.
Copyright cops, sure are not going to be cool.
You can smoke and eat dandylions. But when the vitamin industry gets challenged by enough people saving money and being more healthy, then weeds will be illegal. Those caught with weeds on their property will lose their homes. A small changeover period will be tolerated. Expensive weed killer will be only solution sold. Typical. SUCKS.
Just like IP law disaster and EDD issues coming. CRAZY.
Some love strict scrutiny. Judge jury Executioner all in one wrap.
Posted by Emjaycee - 2 months, 4 days, 56 minutes ago

“BigLaw Associate” (post #5) said: “I agree that there is a significant difference between “public record” and “publicized information” . . . The difference in convenience of access and breadth of dissemination is very real and significant.“

Well, I agree with you, BigLaw, but apparently the California State Bar doesn’t. The Board of Govs here recently rushed thorugh a new rule making the mere ACCUSATION (not conviction) of alleged ethical violations by lawyers freely available on the state bar’s website. So while the case drags on, the good name of the lawyer (who is supposed to be presumed innocent) is publicly dragged through the mud. The Bar’s lame excuse is that this information has been “publicly available” since 1985, so they’re not doing anything but making it easier for the public to obtain this info. (Previously, you had to call the Bar offices and pay for them to copy and mail you the paperwork.) But I think BigLaw is right when he says “The difference in convenience of access and breadth of dissemination is very real and significant.“ To claim otherwise, as the state bar does, is to stick one’s head in the sand and ignore reality.
Posted by BiteMe - 2 months, 2 days, 2 hours, 59 minutes ago

A lawyer gets to make public lots of revealing info during a lawsuit and filing a lawsuit.
This is the basis of settlement money/power.
Now lawyers crying about public/publizied, well equal justice and comes around. Sucks, eh? Open access, while can be ugly, yes, is also fixing a lot more problems than it causes. New scales of justice.
Internet sure is changing cost associated with complex rat race truth/negotiation. Excellent!
Thanks to EFF, Public Citizen, Paul Levy for work on this case!
Posted by nipsey russell - 1 month, 4 weeks, 1 day, 18 hours, 11 minutes ago

@ #24: to build on what #25 said, what is your point? That its ok that “common folk’s” “good names” be dragged through the mud by making public when they are accused of something (“while their case drags on”)....but once the same is applicable to lawyers there is some fundamental breakdown of the system. Boo-hoo!

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