The commercial teaching kit use the artist’s works in their entirety and encouraged the students to create their own art based on them. An art center that sold “art kits” for use by children made a fair use of six of an artist’s works that it included in full in its kits because it drew…
The government will have to pay the software developer only $150,000 for its infringement. The U.S. Navy will be required to pay just over $150,000 in damages for its installation of virtual reality software on nearly 500,000 computers without authorization, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The court of appeals,…
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…
