Blockshopper Website Lawsuit Settled

In August of 2008, the law firm Jones Day sued Chicago’s BlockShopper site, a site that reports on real estate transactions, often with descriptions of those buying and selling homes. Jones Day alleged trademark infringement and unfair trade practices based on Blockshopper’s use of Jones Day’s service marks, links to the Jones Day site and the use of its lawyers’ photos.

To avoid the expense of litigating the suit against a large law firm, BlockShopper agreed to take down the three stories at issue temporarily, but Jones Day then refused to drop the complaint. In negotiations, Jones Day told BlockShopper it would drop the case if BlockShopper paid it $10,000 and agreed to never write about its lawyers’ real estate transactions again, but BlockShopper declined the offer and the suit proceeded.

The trial was set for February 2009, and on January 30, 2009, the two parties settled on the condition that Blockshopper would no longer use embedded links when linking to the Jones Day site. 

See Jones Day v. Blockshopper, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94442 (N.D. Ill.  Nov. 13, 2008).