Allegations against Marvel and one of its top writers fail for the second time. Action-adventure characters from the Captain America and Spider-Man franchises were not unlawfully copied from the self-published comic book series of a relatively unknown author, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has held. The court, in affirming an Atlanta…
The district court erred in taking the statute of limitations into account in determining who was the prevailing party. A defendant in a copyright infringement action is not the prevailing party for purposes of the attorney fee statute where the plaintiff has voluntarily dismissed its case without prejudice—even if that plaintiff would be barred by…
The testimony was properly excluded—and without it, the software company could not prevail on its copyright claims. A Detroit federal court correctly found that a software designer moved too late to introduce expert testimony supporting the copyrightability of its source code, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held. The court, in…
The posting of the privately-developed standards constitutes fair use—at least when done for non-profit purposes. A public interest organization that made available to the public a collection of technical standards incorporated by reference in federal regulations engaged in a fair use of those standards and therefore did not infringe on the exclusive rights of the…
No right to payment for educator who allegedly shared the idea with Wozniak. Tech entrepreneur and personal computing pioneer Steve Wozniak will not have to compensate a business school professor who allegedly gave him the idea for an online tech university, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held. The court, in…
Another court of appeals concludes that the statute of limitations doctrine was not overturned by a Supreme Court laches decision. The Supreme Court did not upend the longstanding discovery rule applicable to Copyright Act cases by merely mentioning in passing that a copyright claim accrues “when an infringing act occurs,” the U.S. Court of Appeals…
The limitation might have failed in an earlier period, but more recent precedents were more forgiving. Parties to a photo image license were free to contract for a two-year statute of limitations under California law, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held. The court, in an unpublished opinion, also affirmed a…
Because such relief was not specified in the Act, a demand for such relief required service of an amended complaint upon a defaulting defendant. A plaintiff who prevailed in a copyright infringement lawsuit against a defaulting defendant was required to serve an amended complaint upon that defendant if the amended complaint newly sought to hold…
Although the company’s description of each individual skill may not have been copyrightable, its selection and arrangement of those skills merited protection. A federal district court properly found that a table of workplace skills developed for use in a career-readiness assessment program was protectable under the Copyright Act because it reflected creativity in the selection…
The court of appeals reverses the district court for the second time in a case that has been pending since 2014. A Vietnamese company that makes accessible within the United States a website and a downloadable app that enable the exchange of unlicensed music files can be sued in a California federal court, the U.S….
