On July 24, 2023, the United States Patent and Trademark Office changed its procedures for the PTO Director’s review of certain decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.  The decisions in question are those decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to deny or grant petitions to institute proceedings under the America Invents Act.  Those proceedings include inter partes review and post grant review.  This change follows two years of an interim process and public comment period.

Continue Reading PTO Allows Another Bite at the Apple

The rise of deepfakes is a growing concern within the entertainment industry. Scott Hervey and Jamie Lincenberg discuss this and the intersection between free speech and protected rights on this episode of The Briefing.

Watch this episode on the Weintraub YouTube channel.

Listen to this podcast episode here.

In the case of Brandy Melville v Redbubble, a three judge appellate panel explored whether an owner of an online market place is liable for contributory trademark infringement. Scott Hervey and Jamie Lincenberg discuss this on this episode of The Briefing.

Continue Reading The Briefing: Shedding Light on ‘Willful Blindness’: Brandy Melville v Redbubble

By:  Weintraub Tobin Summer Associate Josh Concepcion

The Ninth Circuit recently revisited the issue of “embedding” content by a website and its implication for copyright infringement claims. On July 17, 2023, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Hunley v. Instagram, LLC, and affirmed the trial court’s ruling that Instagram, a social media platform, could not face liability for secondary infringement under the “Server Test” because plaintiffs could not prove infringement of their copyrighted photographs since the third-party news platforms had “embedded,” but did not store, the copyrighted photos on their own websites. The Court ultimately reasoned that because the plaintiff posted their photos on Instagram and essentially stored a copy of those images on Instagram’s servers, Instagram did not violate or infringe on the plaintiff’s rights since Instagram had a sublicense to display photos posted onto their platform and the third-party news sites had “embedded” the content in their articles.

Continue Reading Social Media Giants and Copyright: Instagram’s Ninth Circuit Win Sets Precedent Against Photographers