Infringement Nation
May 11, 2012
Access Rights and the First Sale Doctrine, Part III
The Ninth Circuit’s recent Vernor holding is emblematic of the continued enervation of the first sale doctrine, a trend with potentially dramatic consequences for the access rights that ordinary individual may enjoy to copyrighted content. Even in an era of relative wealth, there are many communities and even countries that simply cannot afford the high costs of acquiring initial copies of copyrighted content to sustain a library. In fact, early American copyright law even acknowledged this problem directly.
May 5, 2012
Ninth Circuit’s Computer Hacking Trade Secret Case May Go Higher
The Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in United States v. Nosal recently narrowed the reach of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). In Nosal, the Court held that the CFAA’s prohibition on people using a computer to “exceed authorized access” was limited to computer hacking type scenarios, not scenarios where employees have access to computers but exceed the scope of the access by looking at materials outside their scope of employment or approved parameters.
May 3, 2012
Where Copyright Registration Mistakes Don’t Matter
The Ninth Circuit recently published an opinion involving errors on the copyright registration application materials.
May 1, 2012
Cracks in the DMCA Safe Harbor Emerge….
The Second Circuit recently decided the long-awaited Viacom v. Youtube case addressing the scope of the DMCA safe harbor for copyright infringement claims. This was the massive case filed by Viacom, the English Premiere Football League and others against YouTube and its new owner Google related to the building of YouTube’s business in 2005 and its method of securing user uploaded content.
April 2, 2012
30 Year Delay is Laches…Fourth Circuit Reverses Summary Judgment in Clear Channel Trademark Infringement Case
Ray Communications, Inc., a radio network owned by Bill and Lisa Ray, sued radio conglomerate Clear Channel for trademark infringement in June of 2008. Ray Communications, Inc. (RCI) owned a valid federal trademark in the mark “AGRINET”, a play on the words Agricultural and Network.
March 27, 2012
Chinese Authors Strike against Apple Inc.
Last Sunday Chinese state media reported that a group comprising of 22 Chinese authors have filed suit against Apple alleging that Apple’s App Store has been selling unlicensed copies of their books.
March 22, 2012
Patenting Nature
This past Tuesday, a unanimous (9-0) Supreme Court, in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories, gave further instruction on patent eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101. This was the first time the Supreme Court had addressed the issue since the hotly debated Bilski decision last year.
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