IP: News and Views

What's new in IP-land?

September

RIAA loses So-Cal copyright suit on MTD RIAA filed "boilerplate" complaint for infringement based on "downloading and distributing copyrighted works." Judge granted MTD for failure to state a claim, holding "Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against defendant...other than the bare conclusory statement that on 'information and belief' defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works..." DailyTech Article , Complaint, Order

Programmer Deletes Source Code -- Trade Secret Misappropriation Technology Law Update 9/17/07

The Piracy Paradox: How Illegal Copying is Good for the Fashion Industry The New Yorker.

Prince to sue YouTube, eBay over music use U.S. pop star Prince plans to sue YouTube and other major Web sites for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to "reclaim his art on the Internet." http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/48019363 9/16/07

Company Patents Playlists, Sues Everyone "A company called Premier International Associates filed suit against a slew of tech companies . . . [for] violating Premier's patents for an electronic "List building system"—the older of which was applied for in 1997 and issued in 2001." Ars Technica 9/14/07

Microsoft Patents Watermark That May Protect DRM-free Music Microsoft Corp. has won a patent for a digital-watermarking technology that could be used to protect the rights of content owners even when digital music is distributed without DRM protection. Microsoft Patents Watermark

Copyright Protection for Sound Recordings Will Not be Extended in the UK [1] -- Not exactly new news, but I find it interesting that the US extended protection for Mickey Mouse and the UK isn't going to do it for the Beatles

House Passes Patent Reform Bill The Patent Law Blog -- The Patent Law Blog has a good review of the provisions of the patent reform bill, H 1908. It's provisions include a transition to a first to file system, and an overhaul of the way courts should calculate damages. 9/11/07

Doctor Who Leaked Documents Will Pay $100,000 to Lilly NYT -- Dr. Egilman received the documents as a litigation expert, then provided them to other sources including the New York Times. Is the NYT liable for trade secret misappropriation too?

Pharma Companies form Joint Venture – THe New York Times is reporting that two companies, Isis Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have formed an equally owned joint venture, Regulus Pharmaceuticals. One of the driving forces behind the joint venture was to combine their IP, specifically, patents, in order to do research without fear of patent infringement. (Snitty 08:20, 7 September 2007 (EDT))

Tech, drug companies battle over patent reform. The Washington Post, reports on some of the lobbying around proposed Patent Reform that Congress will consider on its return from recess. Look at the industry groups lined up on opposing sides. 9/3/07

Before Models Can Turn Around, Knockoffs Fly Fashion designers want IP protection for their designs. Should they get some? New York Times, 9/3/07

A big victory: Golan v. Gonzales Professor Larry Lessig blogs about the unanimous court ruling, effectively working towards that works that are in the public domain stay in the public domain. Also: [Stanford Center for Internet and Society] 9/5/07

Pepsi Alerted Coca-Cola to Stolen-Coke-Secrets Offer In this article, Fox News reports on an attempt to sell Pepsi some of Coke's trade secrets.

August

Unlocking the iPhone could invite DMCA suit This link PC WORLD article speaks about how some really intelligent hackers may get into trouble with AT&T and Apple. Apparently, reverse engineering and innovation is not always a good thing, especially when companies are making money for their hard work to keep an exclusive relationship.

Google Settles Trademark Suit Google settled a suit brought by American Blind and Wallpaper Factory for their AdWords program. The theory of the suit was that Google was getting revenue from using trademarks owned by AB&WF. When someone would search for American Blind, google would display sponsored results, thereby making money off of their trade mark. The settlement ended up not being for money, but for a promise that Google wouldn't change AdWords policy to adversely affect AB&WF. You can view the story here: New York Times --Ben Snitkoff

Failure to adhere to Open Source License is not Copyright Breach A blog article detailing Jacobsen v. Katzer. 8/27/07 link title