| Gator v. L.L. Bean.
The Ninth Circuit found that California courts could exercise general jurisdiction over L.L. Bean, based on its continuous and systematic contacts with the state, specifically those contacts arising from its operation of a 'virtual store' over the Internet, national advertising and mailings into California. While it had never registered to do business in California, L.L. Bean derives 6% of its sales from California and sources products from there. Bancroft & MAsters v. Augusta National, 223 F.3d 1082 (9th Cir. 2000) is one of the few other 9th Circuit cases evaluating whether contacts over the Internet can give rise to general jurisdiction (in that case, they didn't).
L.L.Bean has sent a demand letter to pop-up ad promulgator Gator. Gator filed a declaratory judgement in California. I recently downloaded Google Taskbar 2.0 and it has blocked 200 pop-up ads in the week I have had it. That's 200 fewer interruptions in a week.
Gator.com v. L.L. Bean, 02-15035 (9th Cir. Sept. 2, 2003). [The Trademark Blog]
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