First Sale and Exhaustion Doctrines in IP Conference, Nov. 5, SCU
By Eric Goldman I’ve mentioned our First Sale and Exhaustion in IP conference before, but now it’s less than 3 weeks away. If you were thinking about coming, now is a good time to confirm your spot. As regular readers…
Shining the Spotlight on Trademark Bullies (a Long-Delayed Recap of a Trademark Scholars Roundtable)
By Eric Goldman [Occasionally, a blog post gets “stuck” in draft mode for months. These posts typically do not age well, as intervening developments often render the post moot or less interesting. As a result, most stuck blog posts eventually…
Inflatable Giant Gorilla Attacks Google (for Copyright Infringement)–Scherba v. Google
By Eric Goldman Scherba Industries v. Google, Inc., 1:10-cv-02288 (N.D. Ohio complaint filed Oct. 7, 2010). Scherba makes giant inflatable gorillas. See an example. A little improbably, it has a copyright registration for a 3D sculptural work called “Gorilla Inflatable”–the…
September 2010 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman Copyright * US v. ASCAP (2d Cir. Sept. 28, 2010): “the Internet Companies offer their customers the ability to download musical works over the Internet. It is undisputed that these downloads create copies of the musical works,…
Tip for Clean Living: Don’t Use a 14 Year Old’s Self-Portrait in Advertising for Porn–Lara Jade Coton v. TVX
By Eric Goldman Coton v. Televised Visual X-ography, Inc., 2010 WL 3768039 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 16, 2010). The initial complaint. Lara Jade’s blog post on the court victory. Comprehensive recap from Plagiarism Today, who has been tracking the case all…
Anti-Scraping Lawsuit Largely Gutted–Cvent v. Eventbrite
By Eric Goldman Cvent, Inc. v. Eventbrite, Inc., 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 96354 (E.D. Va. Sept. 14, 2010). Given the amount of scraping taking place every day all over the web, scraping lawsuits are surprisingly infrequent. In this ruling, a…
Software Vendor Trumps First Sale Doctrine via License–Vernor v. Autodesk
[Post by Venkat, with some comments from Eric below] Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., Case No. 09-35969 (9th Cir. Sept. 10, 2010) [pdf]. The Ninth Circuit last week issued an opinion in one of the two cases addressing whether a transaction…
July-August 2010 Quick Links, Part 2
By Eric Goldman IP * As expected, Rosetta Stone appealed its trademark loss against Google. My previous blog post. * Reality Blurred successfully counternoticed to overcome CBS’s DMCA takedown notice for the Survivor contract/rule book. * Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v….
Runescape Publisher Denied Preliminary Injunction Against Maker of Auto-Player Software — Jagex Ltd. v. Impulse Software
[Post by Venkat] Jagex Ltd. v. Impulse Software, et al., Case No. 10-10216-NMG (D. Mass.) (Aug. 16, 2010) Jagex operates “Runescape,” a popular and free online role-playing game. The game has over 130 million accounts, and users spend a significant…
July 2010 Quick Links, Part 1 (IP Edition)
By Eric Goldman Trademarks * Rebelution, LLC v. Perez, 2010 WL 3036217 (N.D. Cal. July 30, 2010). The plaintiff is a band named Rebelution. The defendant is a music performer named Pitbull who released an album “Pitbull Starring in Rebelution”…