Trademark Law Briefs

Williams v. Life’s Rad and Cafepress.com, 2010 U.S.Dist. LEXIS 46763 (N.D. Cal. 2010)

It’s not often you see a motion to dismiss granted without leave to amend.  But apparently it does happen.

Cafepress operates a website where vendors can upload designs to be printed on t-shirts and other items.  Vendors can set up “shops” within the website.  Plaintiff and defendant, Life’s Rad, both are vendors on cafepress.com.  Life’s Rad informed Cafepress that plaintiff was selling “Life is Rad” t-shirts which infringed on its federal copyright.  Pursuant to the cafepress.com terms of use, Cafepress removed plaintiff’s shirts.  Plaintiff sued alleging that cafepress had violated the DMCA, the Lanham Act, plaintiff’s due process rights under the Constitution, and interfered with Plaintiff’s prospective economic advantage.  The court dismissed all causes of action against Cafepress without leave to amend.

The DMCA only applies to copyright, not trademark infringement.  Furthermore, the terms of service gave Cafepress a contractual right to remove the material.

Plaintiff lacked standing to allege anything under the Lanham Act because plaintiff did not allege any trademark ownership (in fact, disavowed any ownership).  Furthermore, the Lanham Act doesn’t prohibit Cafepress’s actions.

Plaintiff has no due process rights vis a vis a private (as opposed to government) actor.

As to the unfair competition law claim, Plaintiff made no showing that Cafepress’s decision to remove his designs were immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, substantially injurious or violated public policy.

Finally, plaintiff failed to allege interference with prospective economic advantage because plaintiff stated no facts that Cafepress’s acts were wrongful apart from the interference itself.

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