Koch Industries Climate Change Spoof No Grounds For Suit, Judge Finds

Koch Industries Climate Change Spoof No Grounds For Suit, Judge Finds


Tom Zeller Jr. | Huffington Post | Updated: 05/ 9/11 06:55 PM ET




A U.S. district court in Utah effectively shut down an effort by http://www.kochind.com/">Koch Industries, the Kansas-based industrial conglomerate whose http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer">namesake brothers are vocal skeptics of global warming, to unmask a group of anonymous climate activists who http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/45044630">spoofed the company in a mock press release last December.

The fake statement, posted to a hoax Web site similar to Koch Industries' own, purported to be an awakening of sorts, in which the company admitted the error of its ways on climate change and committed to cease funding of groups seeking to undermine prevailing climate science.

Unamused, Koch http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/koch-industries-unamused-by-climate-spoof/">sued for a variety of claims, including infringement of trademark, unfair competition and cybersquatting, among others. Koch had also sought to serve subpoenas on the company that hosted the sham website in order to obtain the identities of the activists.

The defendants, represented by the advocacy group Public Citizen, sought to have the subpoenas quashed, the activists' identities protected and the lawsuit -- along with all of its claims -- dismissed. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/KochIndustries.pdf">granted all three requests.