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Representing copyright Scott-Hervey-10-webowners attempting to enforce online infringement is often routine, but can sometimes prove challenging. This tends to be the case when a content owner is trying to address large scale infringement of one or multiple works. Most often ISPs are cooperative, but on occasion an ISP may resist responding to a content owner when the owner is represented by an organization like Rightscorp — often referred to as “copyright trolls.” Based on the recent ruling by the Eastern District Court of Virginia against Cox Communications, an ISP is taking a huge risk ignoring infringement notices sent by Rightscorp or any similar organization.

In December of 2014, music publishers BMG Rights Management US, LLC and Round Hill Music LP sued Cox Enterprises Inc. for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. In the complaint the music publishers allege that the ISP waived its immunity from copyright infringement liability under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by disregarding numerous takedown notices sent on their behalf by their agent, Rightscorp, and otherwise failing to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

The DMCA was enacted in 1998 to implement the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty and to update domestic copyright law for the digital age. In particular, the DMCA established a series of four “safe harbors” that allow qualifying Internet service providers to limit their liability for claims of copyright infringement based on (a) “transitory digital network communications,” (b) “system caching,” (c) “information residing on systems or networks at [the] direction of users,” and (d) “information location tools.” 17 U.S.C. §§ 512(a)-(d). To qualify for protection under any of the safe harbors, the ISP must, among other requirements, adopt and implement a “repeat infringer” policy that provides for the termination of account holders.Continue Reading ISPs That Ignore Notices From “Copyright Trolls” Risk Losing DMCA Safe Harbor Protections

Laches, a judiciallyAudrey-Millemann-03_web created defense based on the plaintiff’s delay and prejudice to the defendant, is a proper defense to the recovery of damages in a patent infringement suit, even though the Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that laches does not apply in copyright infringement cases.

A divided en banc Federal Circuit Court of Appeals held in SCA Hygiene Products v. First Quality Baby Products (September 18, 2015) 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16621 that Congress specifically provided for a laches defense in the Patent Act, unlike the Copyright Act.

SCA owned a patent for adult incontinence devices; First Quality was a competitor. In 2003, SCA sent First Quality a letter stating that it believed First Quality’s products infringed SCA’s patent. First Quality replied that SCA’s patent was invalid based on a prior art patent. In 2004, SCA filed a petition for reexamination of its patent in the Patent and Trademark Office, citing the prior art patent. In 2007, the PTO upheld SCA’s patent. SCA had not informed First Quality of the reexamination because the reexamination proceedings were public, but First Quality believed that SCA had dropped its accusation in response to First Quality’s letter. During this time, First Quality had made significant investments in its business. SCA knew First Quality was expanding its business, but did not inform First Quality of the reexamination decision. In 2010, seven years after its last communication with First Quality, SCA sued First Quality for patent infringement.Continue Reading Patent Owners Beware: Don’t Sleep on Your Rights!

The Federal Circuit Court of Audrey-Millemann-03_webAppeals has established a new test for “divided” patent infringement. Direct infringement of a method patent exists when a single party performs all of the steps of the claimed method. 35 U.S.C. §271(a). Divided infringement occurs when all of the steps are not performed by a single party, but by two or more parties under circumstances such that one party is still responsible for the infringement.

The law of divided infringement has been a subject of much debate. The question is: should direct infringement be expanded so that a single party is liable for infringement of a method claim even if another party performed some of the steps of the method? Those who say “no” argue that one party cannot infringe a method patent if it does not perform all of the steps of the claimed method, and that any other interpretation is so broad that it would make infringers out of innocent parties. Those who say “yes,” however, argue that infringers can escape liability for patent infringement simply by dividing up the steps of the claimed method among two or more parties.

In its previous decision in this case, a panel at the Federal Circuit had held that a party can be liable for divided infringement if it shares a principal-agent relationship, a contract, or a joint enterprise with the other party who performs some of the steps. On appeal to the United States Supreme Court, however, the Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded the case to the Federal Circuit, stating that the Federal Circuit’s test for divided infringement may have been too narrow.Continue Reading Divided Infringement: A Stronger Sword for Plaintiffs

In general, any appeal from a civil action involving claims of patent infringement must be made to the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C. A recent case from the Ninth Circuit, Amity Rubberized Pen Company v. Market Quest Group, illustrates this principle as well as demonstrating the practical measures an appellate court will take to help an appeal survive.

In Amity Rubberized Pen Co., Amity held a patent for a device that dispensed both toothpicks and tablets such as breath mints. In 2006, Amity sued Market Quest Group alleging infringement of its patent and brought various other federal and state law claims. Counsel for Amity withdrew from the case during trial and the court declared a mistrial and ordered that Amity substitute in new counsel. It also awarded Market Quest its attorney’s fees and costs for the mistrial and warned Amity that it would dismiss the case if it failed to pay. Amity did not pay the fees and in 2010, the Court dismissed the case with prejudice.

Approximately three years later, in 2013, Amity filed a new lawsuit against Market Quest alleging similar claims as the previous action, including claims for patent infringement. Market Quest filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on the grounds of res judicata, arguing that the present actin was barred by the dismissal with prejudice of similar claims three years earlier. The District Court agreed and dismissed the 2013 lawsuit. Amity appealed this dismissal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals instead of to the Federal Circuit.Continue Reading Patent Infringement and Appellate Jurisdiction

Richard Prince is either on the very edge of fair use or is engaging in Scott-Hervey-10-webblatant copyright infringement. Unlike most however, Prince has been down this road before; accused of infringement and a defense based entirely on fair use. What is different about Prince, and what might explain the sheer boldness of his recent project, is the last time Prince was accused of copyright infringement, he ultimately prevailed on appeal to the 2nd Circuit.

Prince is a practitioner of what has come to be known as “appropriation art,” that is, art – mainly visual art – that incorporates and utilizes third-party images and photographs, which are often the subject of copyright.

In 2008, Prince created thirty works of art that comprised a series he called Canal Zone. The works in Canal Zone made use of a number of images from Patrick Cariou’s photography book on Rastafarians in Jamaica called “Yes Rasta”. In the Canal Zone works, Prince had enlarged, cut up, and painted over Cariou’s images, as well as placed them with other images. While not directly a factor in the Court’s infringement analysis but certainly a motivating factor behind Cariou’s lawsuit, while Cariou had little commercial success with his book, Yes Rasta, Prince sold eight of the Canal Zone works for a total of over $10 million.

Cariou initially won on summary judgment at the district court level, and obtained a permanent injunction compelling Prince to turn over all of the unsold Canal Zone works for sale, disposal or destruction. In its ruling, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that Prince’s works did not qualify as a “fair use” because, among other things, they were not transformative in that they did not “comment on” Cariou’s photographs or the subjects of the photographs, and Prince himself did not articulate any transformative intent in connection with the use of the images. Pic2

On appeal, Prince challenged the lower court’s analysis of the first fair use factor, the purpose and character of the use. The purpose of this factor is to test whether the allegedly infringing work is “transformative”. A work is transformative when it adds something new to the work allegedly infringed, with a further purpose or different character, altering the original work with new expression, meaning, or message. A work is transformative if it does something more than repackage or republish the original copyrighted work. A transformative work is one that serves a new and different function from the original work and is not a substitute for it. As the Supreme Court noted in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., “the more transformative the new work, the less will be the significance of other factors, … that may weigh against a finding of fair use.”Continue Reading Richard Prince once again pushes the limits of fair use