Awarding Enhanced Damages in Patent Infringement Cases
Michael Thomas This term the Supreme Court will take up the issue of awarding enhanced damages in patent infringement cases. Two separate cases petitioned the court to take up the issue after defendants were spared enhanced damages following some questionable activity. The current test used in awarding enhanced damages is a two-part test implemented by the Federal Circuit that incorporates an objective and subjective component. Read Full Text Here
Infringe Now–Apologize Later: Is Class Action a Viable Remedy for Songwriters Claiming Copyright Infringement by Spotify?
Ryan Sullivan Spotify’s compensation model pays out royalties to the record labels, which then compensate the artists and performers. However, Spotify cites the record labels as the reason that artists are not getting paid, but that explanation glosses over whether or not Spotify has infringed upon the copyrights by streaming songs that the company does not have the license to. The streaming service is currently facing the threat of two class action lawsuits that allege that their payment model infringes song writers’ copyrights. The two questions, here, are: Has Spotify infringed upon the copyrights of owners of works that the...
Happy Birthday to You’: The World’s Most Famous Celebratory Song’s Copyright Challenged
Kena Patel It is a well-known adage that the best things in life are free, but how true could this be with a copyright looming over the “Happy Birthday to You” song’s head? On September 22, 2015, a U.S. District Court in California freed “Happy Birthday to You” by ruling on the case Marya v. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. and declaring Warner/Chappell’s copyright invalid. Although the song is widely known by all, many individuals do not know that “Happy Birthday to You” was copyrighted at all, let alone know that Warner/Chappell was making $2 million a year from ownership. The history...
The Trans-Pacific Partnership on Internet Service Providers: Notice, Counter-Notice, and Liability Limitations
Joseph Davi With the recent release of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) intellectual property chapters, jurists and pundits have quickly begun to comb through the language and pick apart the intriguing and possibly soon-to-be influential document. While many have focused on this document’s proposed changes to the way copyright holders and infringers interact with their governments, each other, and each other’s governments, it is very important to stop and try to understand the changes that are more ground level. More specifically, it is worthwhile to take a close look at the proposed changes in how copyright holders and infringers interact...
Mascot Madness: Are Characters in Times Square Violating Trademark Law?
Victoria Chu The activity in Times Square has also raised trademark issues. The First Amendment generally protects the costumed performers’ right to dress up like characters in public. The First Amendment also protects the costumed performers, so long as they ask for “donations” and “tips.” However, copyright and trademark owners, such as The Walt Disney Company (“Disney”) and Sesame Workshop, among others, have a legitimate interest in protecting their intellectual property. Such interests include their rights to terminate unlicensed use and to protect against consumer confusion and trademark dilution. Courts have not yet addressed whether or not the costumed performers...
Not Quite a Marathon
Keith Levinsky The dispute over “Marathon Monday” trademark began in 2011 when Velocity LLC applied to register the trademark in connection with sweatshirts, hats, and other clothing. Velocity, a clothing company from Everett, Massachusetts, produced clothing for the BAA from 2009 to 2010. The company asked the BAA about becoming the official licensee of the Boston Marathon trademark, but the BAA refused since it already had an exclusive agreement with Adidas. Adidas is the Official Footwear and Apparel Supplier of the Boston Marathon and provides apparel to Marathon volunteers, race officials, and runners. Read Full Text Here
Defenseless in the Zombie Infested Internet: Why Audio-Visual Works Demand Exemption Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Eric Maher In the aftermath of Napster and Pirate Bay’s shameless disregard for copyrights, DRM strategies are necessary to protect the incentives that encourage artists and programmers to create and publicly display their works. Yet the security risks associated with DRM levy a high cost on the public, on whose patronage the content creators depend. By restricting research and investigation into security risks in popular public technologies, U.S. copyright law, particularly under the anti-circumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), removed necessary safeguards for the public. The large influx of new consumer electronics demands exemption from the anti-circumvention...
Intellectual Property Indemnity Clauses
Thomas Hemnes, M.S. The practices associated with intellectual property indemnity can be traced in part to Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code. At the dawn of the computer age, practitioners searched for legal models that they could use for transactions in intangible rights and products such as computer software. Although computer software did not fit easily into the “sale of goods” paradigm, analogies to the familiar rules governing sales of goods were inevitable. Lurking in the lower reaches of Article 2 of the UCC, one finds an implied warranty of non-infringement in Section 2-312(2): Unless otherwise agreed, a seller...
Avoid the Rainy Day: Survey of U.S. Cloud Computing Caselaw
Fernando M. Pinguelo; Bradford W. Muller Cloud computing, a computer networking model that gives users on-demand access to shared software applications and data storage, is becoming increasingly popular among businesses and individuals. For example, if you use Google’s Gmail for your email and calendaring, or Snapfish for your online photo sharing and storage; or if your business remotely stores data with a third-party server provider like Salesforce, or uses Windows Azure to create and host web applications and services, you are already “floating in a cloud.” To provide guidance to those companies working within a cloud – or those considering...
Digital Sampling of Music and Copyrights: Is It Infringement, Fair Use, or Should We Just Flip a Coin?
Christopher C. Collie; Eric D. Gorman D.J. Girl Talk is one of the budding artists in the music industry today, and his instrument is a laptop. D.J. Girl Talk (hereinafter also referred to as “Girl Talk”), whose real name is Gregg Gillis, “samples,” or uses short clips, from other artists’ songs to create popular dance music. Girl Talk’s songs combine old, contemporary, and downright odd genres of music. Within these different genres, he samples from artists such as Clipse, Kelly Clarkson, and Hot Chip. At his live concerts, D.J. Girl Talk leads massive crowds who dance non-stop to his songs....