A Trio of Post-Bilski Cases Fail to Clearly Define the Meaning of “Abstract”
When the Supreme Court decided Bilski, we lamented that the “Court regrettably failed to provide guidance in the future about business method patents.” Now we are faced with the result of that failure: a string of cases that leaves us scratching ou…
MP3tunes: A Victory for Music Lockers Is Good News for Music Fans
We’ve watched this year as Amazon, Google, and Apple have raced to roll out cloud-based music locker services. Each of these company’s services signals something in common: an apparent fear of liability for de-duplicating files uploaded by their custom…
Poking More Holes in the First Sale Doctrine
The parade of cases undermining the first sale exception of copyright law continued this week with an unfortunate ruling from the Second Circuit.
The “first sale” principle is what allows the purchaser of a copy of a book or CD or other copyrighted…
Open WiFi and Liability for Copyright Infringement: Setting the Record Straight
Last week, TorrentFreak ran an interesting pair of posts offering opposing views on an issue that has become increasingly important with the rise of the copyright trolls: whether a person who runs an open wifi network can be held liable when others use…
The "Hot News" Doctrine After Fly On the Wall: Surviving, But On Life Support
A federal appellate court this week issued a fascinating decision on whether the much-maligned “hot news doctrine” – which confers a quasi-property right in facts — will survive in the digital age. The answer? Yes, but barely, and not as an ea…
Supreme Court Affirms High Standard of Proving Patents Invalid
Today the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Circuit’s rule that, in litigation, a patent may only be proved invalid by clear and convincing evidence. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case – Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Limited Partnership – supporting Mic…
WSJ and Al-Jazeera Lure Whistleblowers With False Promises of Anonymity
The success of Wikileaks in obtaining and releasing information has inspired mainstream media outlets to develop proprietary copycat sites. Al-Jazeera got into the act first, launching the Al-Jazeera Transparency Unit (AJTU), an initiative meant to “al…
Mass Copyright Litigation: New Challenge for the Federal Courts
The below originally appeared in the Daily Journal.
The past year has seen the emergence of a new litigation strategy that poses particular challenges for the federal courts: mass copyright litigation. Over 130 mass copyright cases – i.e., copyright…
More Bad News for Righthaven: Domain Name Claim Dismissed in DiBiase Case
Nevada federal judge Roger Hunt was busy last week. In addition to his widely reported decision in Righthaven v. Democratic Underground to unseal Righthaven LLC’s business agreement with publisher Stephen Media – an agreement that shows Righthaven…
Appeals Court Hears Argument in the "Breast Cancer Gene" Case
The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. heard oral argument yesterday in the closely watched “breast cancer gene” patent case. At issue are two patents covering naturally occurring human genes that, when present, signal an increase…
keep looking »
Categories
Blogroll
Ads and partners
