The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s summary judgment grant in favor of a fine jewelry producer for trademark infringement, counterfeiting and unfair competition because factual disputes...more
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit preserved discovery options for copyright owners fighting online piracy when it reversed the district court’s refusal to allow a subpoena of an alleged online...more
Taking on issues of functionality and fame relating to trade dress rights, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s judgment after a jury trial on claims of...more
With the validity of a copyright registration at issue, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s judgment after a jury trial and award of attorney’s fees in favor of the plaintiff...more
Vacating the district court’s order denying a defendant’s recovery of attorneys’ fees under the Copyright Act, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that, even when asserted as a claim for declaratory relief, any...more
In a non-precedential ruling by summary order, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against famed comedian Jerry Seinfeld, finding that the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a complaint seeking a declaration of trademark abandonment, finding that the plaintiff (the co-owner of an online business that sells to customers in...more
Affirming a summary judgment in favor of defendant, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit determined that a copyright infringement lawsuit pertaining to the graphic design on a guitar made famous by a late heavy...more
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit is not required to show that a defendant willfully infringed the plaintiff’s trademark as a...more
4/27/2020
/ § 1125(a) ,
§ 1125(c) ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Compensatory Awards ,
Dilution ,
Lanham Act ,
Lost Profits ,
Remand ,
Remedies ,
Romag Fasteners v Fossil ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Vacated ,
Willful Infringement
Ruling en banc, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated a 2016 jury verdict, finding that the rock band Led Zeppelin and the opening notes of its hit song “Stairway to Heaven” did not infringe the 1967 song...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that plaintiffs-appellees’ temporary artwork had achieved appropriate stature to be protected by the rarely invoked Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), and that an...more
Concluding that a terminated exclusive trademark licensee failed to establish the elements required to impose a preliminary injunction, the US Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of a...more
1/3/2020
/ Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Exclusive Licenses ,
Injunctions ,
Irreparable Harm ,
License Agreements ,
Licensees ,
Likelihood of Success ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Reversal ,
Termination ,
Trademark Licenses ,
Trademarks
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction forbidding professional networking platform LinkedIn from denying data analytics company hiQ access to publicly available LinkedIn profiles. HiQ...more
11/12/2019
/ Analytics ,
Appeals ,
Cease and Desist ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Data Collection ,
Data Use Policies ,
Declaratory Judgments ,
DMCA ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Irreparable Harm ,
Likelihood of Success ,
LinkedIn ,
Penal Code ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Public Information ,
Public Interest ,
Remand ,
Trespass ,
Web Scraping
Applying the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2017 decision in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands regarding the copyrightability of non-utilitarian sculptural design features (IP Update, Vol. 20, No. 4), the US Court of...more
10/16/2019
/ Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Copyrightable Subject Matter ,
First Impression ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Star Athletica v Varsity Brands ,
The Copyright Act ,
Trade Dress ,
Unfair Competition
Addressing § 504(c)(1) of the US Copyright Act, which permits an award of statutory damages in lieu of actual damages for copyright infringement, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit considered a question of first...more
In a 6–3 opinion, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed a 2017 US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decision holding the ban on registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks under the Lanham Act to be an...more
8/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Lanham Act ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reversal ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s dismissal of claims of copyright infringement, violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and breach of...more
In finding a fair use defense and no “likelihood of confusion” in a cosmetics trademark infringement dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit also considered, as an issue of first impression, whether the Seventh...more
7/11/2019
/ Appeals ,
Cosmetics ,
Disgorgement ,
Fair Use ,
Jury Trial ,
Lanham Act ,
Likelihood of Confusion ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Seventh Amendment ,
Statutory Damages ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademarks ,
Unfair Competition
A 6-3 opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States in Iancu v. Brunetti affirmed a Federal Circuit 2017 decision. Both rulings found the ban on the registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks under the Lanham Act...more
6/27/2019
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Lanham Act ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reversal ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination
Affirming the district court’s summary judgment ruling on the protectability of the trademark BOOKING.COM, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit weighed in on the somewhat controversial issue of the genericness of a...more
Holding that reproduction of a digital file for purposes of resale does not fall under the “first sale” doctrine of the Copyright Act, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of...more
2/11/2019
/ Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Copyright Ownership ,
Damages ,
Digital Media ,
Fair Use ,
Final Judgment ,
First Sale Doctrine ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Music Industry ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Right to Control ,
Summary Judgment ,
The Copyright Act
In a fight involving sales of mattresses and alleged trash talking pertaining to those mattresses, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit joined the Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth and Federal Circuits in holding...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit found that the defendant’s use of the names “Old Taylor” and “the Former Old Taylor Distillery” (collectively, the Old Taylor names) to refer to its property and future bourbon...more
In a case that attracted 20 amici briefs, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a blockbuster decision in the years-long battle between Oracle and Google over Google’s Android platform. The Court concluded...more
In an action involving the popular film series The Purge, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court denial of the defendants’ anti-SLAPP motion, holding that the plaintiff’s breach of...more