By: David Muradyan

17 U.S.C. § 411(a) requires one to register their copyright prior to filing a copyright infringement lawsuit. What does it mean to “register” one’s work?  Is a copyright registered at the time the copyright holder’s application is received by the Copyright Office (the “application approach”), or at the time that the Copyright Office acts on the application and issues a certificate of registration (the “registration approach”)? Different district courts within the Ninth Circuit followed different approaches. Thanks to a recent Ninth Circuit decision in Cosmetic Ideas, Inc. v. IAC/InteractiveCorp., 606 F.3d 612 (2010), practitioners in the Ninth Circuit now have a definitive answer.

Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Settles District Court Split on Copyright Filing as a Prerequisite to an Infringement Suit

By: Jeffrey Pietsch

A New Jersey Superior Court recently granted summary judgment in favor of online ticket resellers who were sued by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office for violating New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act and Advertising Regulations. The summary judgment was granted by the court based on the immunity provided by Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act of 1996 (CDA).

The CDA was initially proposed in 1996 to regulate indecency and obscenity on the internet. Major parts of the bill were eventually eliminated because they were deemed to violate the first amendment. Section 230 of the bill, however, increased the scope of free speech on the internet by limiting the liability of online service providers for speech made by their customers. Section 230 was enacted as a direct result of the ruling issued by the New York State Supreme Court in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. In that case, the court ruled that Prodigy was essentially a publisher of the words of its customers and therefore could be liable for acts of its customers. Without Section 230 overturning this ruling, the internet landscape would be quite different than it is today.

Continue Reading Online Ticket Resellers Immune Under the Communication Decency Act

By: Scott M. Hervey

Under 15 U.S.C. §1065, subject to certain criteria, a registered mark that has been in continuous use for five consecutive years after the date of registration and is still in use shall be deemed incontestable. Incontestable status is not available for marks where (1) there has been a final decision adverse to the registrant’s claim of ownership or right to register the mark; (2) there is a pending TTAB or court action involving the mark; or (3) the mark is generic.

Continue Reading TTAB Takes Up Question Whether Incontestable Status Lends To Mark’s Strength In Likelihood of Confusion Analysis

Weintraub partner Scott Hervey presented a program on August 19, 2010 to the Association of Corporate Counsel on boilerplate language in IP transactions.

 

Boilerplate – those standard legal clauses appearing at the end of the agreement. These clauses are often overlooked when reviewing an agreement because they are supposed to be "standard," and in drafting they are often cut from a previous agreement and copied into a new one. This is a mistake. Boilerplate is important and should be given as much scrutiny as the rest of the contract. Although this presentation will focus certain boilerplate language in IP transactions, most of the clauses discussed can be found in any type of transaction.

 

 

 

By: Matthew G. Massari

On August 10, 2010, the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., the publisher of the online computer game World of Warcraft, $88.5 million in a copyright-infringement case against a Georgia resident. The game publisher filed suit in federal court in Los Angeles in October 2009 against Alyson Reeves of Savannah, Georgia, and five unidentified defendants.

Continue Reading World of Warcraft® Computer Game Maker Scores Big In Battle Against Infringers