December 2015

A longstanding battle between Google andAudrey-Millemann-03_web the authors of published books has been resolved (at least for now) in favor of Google. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has held that Google’s use of copyrighted books in its Library Project and Google Books website, without the permission of the authors, is fair use and therefore not copyright infringement. The Authors Guild v. Google, Inc. (2nd Cir. 2015) 804 F.3d 202.

In 2004, Google began its Library Project. Google entered into agreements with some of the world’s leading research libraries, including the University of California, the University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Princeton, the New York Public Library, and Oxford. Under the agreements, the libraries submitted certain books to Google which Google digitally scanned, made machine-readable texts, and indexed the texts. Google has now scanned and indexed over 20 million books. Some of the books were copyrighted, while others were in the public domain. Most of the books were out of print, non-fiction books. The digital copies are stored on Google’s servers.

The public can access Google’s database of machine-readable texts through the Google Books website. On the website, the user can search for key words and find all books that include the key words and the number of times the search terms appear in each book. The search results also include a short summary description of each book and may include a link to purchase the book or the names of the libraries where the book is located. The website also offers the user the ability to see up to three snippets (segments of about an eighth of a page) of the text of the book. Searches for different words will turn up different snippets, but one snippet out of every page and one page out of every ten pages of each book are permanently inaccessible to the user (referred to by Google as “blacklisted”). In 2005, Google agreed to remove the snippet feature for any book at the copyright owner’s request. Google does not permit advertising in the Google Books searches and does not get paid for any sales of books.Continue Reading When Copying is Not Copyright Infringement

Everyone on the West Coast knows In-N-Out Burger. transparent For some of us Californians, the burgers may even be considered a state treasure. Doordash, on the other hand, is much less recognizable. It is an on-demand delivery service that connects its customers with local businesses. According to Doordash, it enables its users to purchase food from merchants and have it delivered within 45 minutes. While providing this service, Doordash delivered In-N-Out food products to its customers all across the nation. Unfortunately for Doordash, this seemingly innocent, and mutually beneficial, conduct resulted in it being sued in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition.

In-N-Out filed its complaint against Doordash on November 6, 2015. In the complaint, In-N-Out contends that it has not authorized Doordash to deliver its food products and that Doordash is not its affiliate. Despite these facts, In-N-Out contends that Doordash delivers food from In-N-Out and utilizes a colorable imitation mark, as well as several of In-N-Out’s registered trademarks. According to In-N-Out, the intent of this conduct is to confuse consumers as to Doordash’s authority to deliver In-N-Out’s products.Continue Reading The Beef Between In-N-Out Burger and Doordash