Nov. 23 - Judge Rules That Web Site Critical of Hamilton County Republican Party Should Not Be Shut Down

WASHINGTON, D.C. - A Cincinnati court today denied a request from the Hamilton County Republican Party to shut down a Web site critical of the party, accepting arguments made by Public Citizen.

The party on Nov. 18 requested that the site be shut down because its domain name, www.hamiltoncountyrepublicanparty.com, is nearly identical to the domain name of the party’s Web site, www.hamiltoncountyrepublicanparty.org. The party alleged that the site owner committed trademark infringement and is guilty of unfair competition.

In a hearing today in the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas, Judge Ralph E. Winkler denied the party’s motion to immediately order the site owner to refrain from using his Web site. In a memorandum of law filed to coincide with the hearing, Public Citizen, which is representing the site owner, argued that because the Web site is strongly critical of Republicans and several Republican judicial candidates, no reasonable viewer would confuse it with the Hamilton County Republican Party’s true Web site, and therefore there is no trademark infringement. The site owner was represented at the hearing by Cincinnati attorney Bruce Whitman.

In his brief, the site owner also argued that the party’s motion for a temporary restraining order should be denied because such an order would constitute a prior restraint on political speech that would violate core First Amendment principles, and because trademark law pertains only to commercial speech made to promote a business. Moreover, legal precedent has established that trademark law is not implicated when a Web site is devoted to criticizing the holder of a trademark and is unlikely to confuse viewers.

"The trademark laws were not designed to prevent citizens from publicly criticizing a political party," said Public Citizen attorney Gregory Beck. "The party was attempting to shut down a site just because it features uncomplimentary statements about it. However, the court recognized that shutting down the site would have been a clear violation of the site owner's First Amendment rights."

• Click here to read Public Citizen’s memorandum.
• Bruce Whitman’s Web site is at http://www.whitmanlawoffice.com/.

Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit
www.citizen.org.

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