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What Is a Joint Work in Copyright Law?

We should all know by now that songs, movies, and books are copyrighted works. Every time we see a movie, for example, we are reminded of this by the “FBI Warning” stating that federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted motion pictures. And copyright owners take this seriously. …

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Protect Your Website With Copyright Registration

Copyright Registration for Websites The first thing that comes to mind for many people when discussing the Copyright issues of websites are cases such as Napster and Grokster, where the website owner was found to have infringed on the Copyrights of others.[1] These cases, and many others like them, have made it clear that website …

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What Is a Copyright and How to Register Your Work

What Is a Copyright? What does it mean to copyright something? We always see the copyright symbol © on the second page of a book, on the bottom of websites, and in the bottom right hand portion of paintings and lithographs, such as Chuck Jones’ famous 1994 work of art with Daffy Duck and Porky …

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Buysafe, Inc. v. Google, Inc.- Another Business Method Patent Invalidated

On September 3, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court’s finding that the claims to a patent owned by buySAFE, Inc. are invalid under 35 U.S.C. section 101. Perhaps more significantly, the Court of Appeals used the approach recently affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in …

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Inter Partes Review of Patents

Inter Partes Review The America Invent Act (AIA) brought new changes to the way the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) conducts review of patents challenged by third parties. Some of these changes include new rules to institute an inter partes review of a patent with a new standards for showing of sufficient grounds …

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$147.2 Million Jury Award against Blackberry Overturned

On August 22, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s findings that Research In Motion Limited and Research In Motion Corporation (BlackBerry) did not infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,970,917 (“’917 patent”), owned at the time of suit by MFormation Technologies, Inc. and mFormation Software Technologies, Inc. (MST). After a jury trial …

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Overview Of The Trial Proceedings Conducted By The USPTO

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) introduced several new trial proceedings that are now available for reexamining or challenging issued patents. These procedures are an attempt to streamline the process of reviewing issued patents, and to minimize the costs to challengers or patent owners, by providing a less costly alternative to litigation. While …

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When Is The Purchaser Of A Business Assets Liable For The Seller’s Liabilities?

The issue of successor corporation liability has been the subject of many cases in California. When it comes to purchasing an existing corporation’s assets, you can never be too sure of the issues that will arise once the sale date passes and the agreement is complete. A corporate successor is a corporation that takes on …

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Attacking An Issued Patent Without Filing Suit

Standards for Third Party Review of Issued Patents The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act replaced inter partes reexamination with a new proceeding similarly called an inter partes review proceeding. This process took effect on September 16, 2012, one year after enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act. Part of the changes implemented into the newer proceeding include the standard required …

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One Plus One Does Not Equal New. The Federal Circuit Invalidates I/P Engine’s Patents

I/P Engine brought a patent infringement lawsuit against Google and several other defendants for infringing on several of its patents. The patents at issue relate to a method for filtering Internet search results. The patents’ main operational features determine the relevance of an Internet search by, for example, extracting text from a web page (known …

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$30 Million Verdict Against Google Overturned Due (in part) to Prior Art Admissions in Patents

On August 15, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al, reversed a lower court’s decision granting I/P Engine, Inc. an award for over $30 million in damages against Google, AOL, and Target for patent infringement. The Appeals Court’s reversal was based on …

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