I previously wrote about a case, Metropolitan Regional Information Systems, Inc. v. American Home Realty Network, Inc., involving the assignment of copyrights by uploading photographs to a website. In it, the district court held that uploading a photograph was the equivalent of signing an agreement under the E-Sign Act. I was unhappy with the...
Read more →Short and sweet: after seven years of litigation, partial summary judgment, and an award against the defendant for $100,000, the court vacated it all because, a year after the award, the defendant’s new lawyer noticed the plaintiff didn’t actually own the copyrights, its subsidiaries did. In light of the recently unearthed determination that Plaintiff...
Read more →Ruh-roh, I think a court went off the rails. I don’t have a good feeling about this. The case is, in part, about infringement of copyright. As you know, one cannot bring suit for infringement of a U.S. copyright unless the copyright is registered. 17 U.S.C. § 411. But it gets a little confusing...
Read more →DeliverMed Holdings LLC v. Schaltenbrand is a dispute about a failed business involving the tagline “Right at Home, the trademark “DeliverMed,” and a “mortar and pestle” logo: In the last post we covered the court’s opinion, after a bench trial, on the ownership and infringement of the copyright in the logo. Score one for...
Read more →Sometimes you just can’t do better than the court in setting up a story: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season...
Read more →Medical Products Laboratories, Inc. v. Premier Dental Products Co. had the makings of a good tale about joint ownership of a trademark, but alas, it was decided on a statute of limitations basis rather than anything more substantive. Maybe we’ll see something later in the state court. Medical Products was a contract manufacturer for...
Read more →One of the most misunderstood aspects of copyright law is work-made-for-hire. The lay understanding is that a work created at the request of another in exchange for payment is a “work for hire.” That’s not true, as explained by the Supreme Court in 1989 in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, but nevertheless it...
Read more →I ran across a point about enforceability of a trademark that I don’t recall seeing before, which is that a trademark for which the registration was procured by fraud is unenforceable. The point is made in Firehouse Restaurant Group, Inc. v. Scurmont LLC, a case in which a jury held, and the court affirmed,...
Read more →Sometimes decisions seem expedient instead of right, albeit perhaps no harm, no foul. VocalSpace, LLC v. Lorenso is one of those decisions. Defendant Daniel Lorenso is a software developer and former employee of plaintiff VocalSpace, a company that designs web-based internet marketing and streaming media systems. VocalSpace claimed that Lorenso “stole” VocalSpace’s source code...
Read more →Here’s an exercise in frustration that killed a copyright infringement lawsuit twice: 1993, 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 – Plaintiff Kunkel creates copyrightable works. November 2001 – Kunkel files bankruptcy. Does not list copyrights as part of estate.February, 2003 – Kunkel files copyright applications for works created pre-bankruptcy in his own name.March, 2006 –...
Read more →Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
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