By disallowing multiple statutory damages awards under the Copyright Act, the Ninth Circuit could cause future plaintiffs under similar facts to sue each defendant separately. In a suit—in which a jury returned a verdict of $480,000 against five defendants in the textile industry—involving infringement of a single copyrighted fabric design, the U.S. Court of Appeals…
District court erred in ruling that a copyright infringement suit by a medical certification board against a physician for sending test questions to a test prep company was time-barred. The “discovery rule” in a copyright infringement case means that the three-year statute of limitations begins to run on the date of the discovery of the cause of…
Substantial similarity was lacking because the TV show used reported facts in combination with tone, dialogue, and themes that were different from the book. Scenes in the Netflix drama Narcos did not infringe the copyright of Virginia Vallejo, who wrote a memoir about her relationship with Pablo Escobar, because historical facts are not copyrightable, and the plot,…
17 U.S.C. §412 precluded developer of honey harvesting aid from seeking statutory damages for mail-order seller’s copying of advertising text in catalogue. The suit by the developer of a honey harvesting aid used by beekeepers alleging that a mail-order business infringed his copyright in advertising copy for the device was properly dismissed because the first…
As yet, no federal appeals court has addressed whether a human body part may qualify as a tangible medium of expression for copyright purposes, but this one came close. In a suit in which a makeup artist’s state law claims against a photographer and a makeup manufacturer were dismissed as preempted by the Copyright Act,…
In addition to the low likelihood of success on the merits, the threat of imminent harm was eliminated, given that the Christmas show that Enchant sought to stop had already come and gone. The denial of a preliminary injunction by a Nashville federal court in a copyright infringement case involving holiday animal sculptures on the…
Register’s opinion needed to determine validity of textile designer’s “single-unit registration” for 31 separate designs that were not released at the same time. In a case in which textile designer Unicolors, Inc., obtained a jury verdict against retailer H&M for copyright infringement involving designs printed on garments, the Ninth Circuit has reversed and remanded, ordering…
Relying on obviously insufficient oversight mechanisms for discovering copyright infringement can constitute willful infringement. A California district court erred when it reduced a $460,800 jury verdict by $109,700 for lack of proof of willful infringement in a copyright infringement suit by Greg Young Publishing, Inc., against online marketplace Zazzle because recklessness can constitute willful infringement,…
Dismissal on claim preclusion grounds of suit brought by Media Rights Technologies, Inc., mostly affirmed, but reversed as to products that Microsoft sold after the date when MRT filed a patent infringement suit against Microsoft involving the same set of operative facts, which had been dismissed. The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has…
A preliminary injunction against a competitor was upheld in light of costume maker Rasta Imposta’s likelihood of success on the merits of its copyright infringement suit. Costume supplier Silvertop Associates, Inc., doing business as Rasta Imposta, was entitled to a preliminary injunction stopping competitor Kangaroo Manufacturing from selling a “knock-off” full-body banana costume because Rasta…
