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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). 1