IP Law Bulletin

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to circumvent technological measures used to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works.  Certain activities and classes of works, however, are exempted from this prohibition.  The exempted classes of works are determined by the U.S. Copyright Office every three years and remain in effect for the ensuing three-year period. 

Over the summer we analyzed a decision by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that denied Amazon.com, Inc.’s (Amazon) motion for summary judgment as to watchmaker Multi Time Machine, Inc.’s (MTM) claims that Amazon’s use of MTM’s trademarks as keywords at amazon.com was infringing. The Ninth Circuit has now taken the unusual step of revisiting and vacating its July decision, upholding the federal district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Amazon. 

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that Google’s scanning of printed books and subsequent use of the resulting digital copies is fair use under the Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 107). Google was first sued by the Authors Guild a decade ago over its Library Project and Books Project, which involve scanning published works to create digital copies, making the text searchable, and displaying at least snippets of the work in connection with search results. The decision affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment and focused on the transformative nature of Google’s use. The Second Circuit noted that Google’s use provides information about a book without being a substitute for the book itself. The decision may not be the final word in this case—the Authors Guild states on their website that they intend to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that the “Safe Harbor” data transfer regulatory framework, which had enabled the otherwise prohibited transmission of European Union residents’ personal information to the U.S., is invalid. The program enabled those who collect data in the European Union to transmit the data to the United States notwithstanding the E.U. determination that the U.S. lacks “adequate” privacy laws. Companies who have relied upon or who were planning to rely upon the Safe Harbor scheme should assess the alternatives that are available and adjust their practices accordingly.

Nutter’s series on building a brand began with the selection of a trademark and the process of formally protecting a mark via trademark registration. More recent articles in the series have addressed policing a brand, proper trademark usage, and brand considerations in the social media environment. This article, the last in the series, focuses on additional post-registration considerations, namely: (1) exploiting your mark through licensing, including important quality control considerations; (2) applying to register branding elements in addition to the core plain text mark to enable more effective policing of your brand’s entire commercial impression; and (3) assessing the unauthorized use of your brand by third parties (or using another’s mark without authorization) for purposes of determining whether such uses are “fair” or, on the other hand, harmful and actionable.

Pat Concannon discusses the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. and the implications for owners of music and audiovisual works.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit this week issued a decision with implications for owners of music and audiovisual works. The court ruled that copyright owners first must assess whether a use of their content is in fact lawful “fair use” before sending a takedown notification under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Considering fair use involves a balancing of subjective factors, this newly-clarified requirement may make it logistically more difficult and time consuming for content owners to evaluate whether a use of their content discovered online qualify for takedown notices.

On September 1, 2015, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) launched a pilot program that allows some trademark owners the opportunity to amend their identifications of goods or services that would otherwise be beyond the scope of the current identification. The program allows owners to “catch-up” their trademark registrations with the “wheels of technology” so to speak. Did your company at one time obtain a trademark registration covering “printed newsletters” that are now offered as “downloadable online subscriptions?” Or perhaps your company had a registration for “phonograph records featuring music” that is now offered as “downloadable music files?”

Summary: The nature of public trademark data lends itself to information mining and a significant amount of confusion, deception, and fraud. Accordingly, many private businesses have monopolized public data for their own commercial gain. These private businesses send scam e-mails and letters to clients and counsel including “invoices” that are often paid due to their perceived authenticity. To prevent deception by these fraudulent scams, clients should be advised of the nature of these scams and what to look for when receiving trademark related correspondence.

The Supreme Judicial Court for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (SJC) will decide an important legal malpractice case arising from an alleged conflict of interest that occurred during the prosecution of two patent applications. This decision will affect patent applicants and practitioners in Massachusetts, and courts in other states may look to this decision when analyzing alleged conflicts of interest in the patent prosecution context. Nutter recently filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Boston Patent Law Association (BPLA) on this issue. The BPLA argues that the adoption of a new conflict of interest rule that would prevent a patent practitioner from representing applications filed by competitors on “similar inventions” would create a great deal of uncertainty for both applicants and patent practitioners. Further, if this blanket rule were adopted, applicants might attempt to monopolize the marketplace for lawyers with specific expertise in order to gain a competitive advantage.