Tuesday, November 30, 2004

News: Google Motion of Summary Judgment Denied in Geico Case. Why, oh why do I find trademark stuff interesting? I have no idea - well, actually, I do - commercial speech is fascinating, and it underpins the entire economic base of search. I've been following this stuff for a while now, as my long suffering readers know. The two big cases (and there are others) are Geico and American Blinds. In the Geico case, Google filed for a motion to dismiss in late summer, which was denied in the early fall. The case went to early discovery, and then Google filed a summary judgment, which is something parties to a lawsuit often do when they believe there is no merit to the case. I haven't seen any coverage of this part of the case, but this marks another milestone: Last week (Nov. 19th to be exact) the judge denied Google's request for summary judgment, according to the clerk at the Alexandria, Virginia court where the case resides. (I discovered this while researching the book). Hence, this one looks like it's going to full throated trial (or...close mouthed settlement, though I don't think so, as that would encourage a lot more suits). It also means the odds rise for the American Blind case going forward - that one awaits a judgment on Google's initial motion to dismiss. By the way, the reason that there was no news of Google's filing the summary judgment motion is that Google asked that it be filed under seal. That request was granted, but the fact that the motion was denied is public. Ya just gotta ask... More on trademarks, and why they matter, here, here here and here.... [John Battelle's Searchblog] 10:51:32 PM    comment []

The Best of the Best. Yep, we're still looking for great Windows and .NET developers.  Turns out it's pretty hard to find folks with the depth of knowledge we're looking for.  Most recently, Gordon has joined us (welcome!), but we still need more help. So I thought I might list a few questions that our ideal candidate wouldn't have too many problems with. Does this describe you? You know the difference between _beginthreadex and CreateThread. You know all of the ways to share memory between Win32 processes.  (hint - it's a short list.) (another hint - it's a really short list.) You know what an AppDomain is, and you can think of a reason you might want to create one yourself. You know what a HttpModule is, and you can think of at least two examples of why you might use one. You know what Mutexes and Semaphores are used for. (hint - they don't magically enable sharing stuff between threads.) You know you can override member functions in C++ without them being declared virtual; and you know when and why you should declare them virtual. You can explain the difference between:      A::A() {m_x = 5;}   and      A::A() : m_x(5) { }   When someone asks you to write code on a whiteboard to reverse a string in place, you're disappointed that they didn't ask a more interesting question. You know that IL isn't interpreted. You can explain transaction isolation levels as they relate to SQL Server. You know what the Running Object Table is, and can think of situations when you might want to use it. You want to work with an amazing team of folks who thought I shouldn't have put such easy questions on my blog. If you're not already here, you're interested in relocating to Colorado. Most of the work we do is in C#...however, some of our work is done in C++ (Managed C++ in most cases).   So if you want to come work with us, working on cutting-edge products for a very quickly growing company, then send a note to jobs (at) newsgator.com! [Greg Reinacker's Weblog] 10:50:12 PM    comment []