On February 13, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion in Function Media, L.L.C v. Google Inc., __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. 2013). In the decision, written by Judge Reyna, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s invalidation of one of the plaintiff’s patents as indefinite. The court found that [...]
Google recently wrote a letter on June 8 to the owner of the website Youtube-MP3.org, stating that it must stop its activities within seven days of Google’s letter. Youtube-MP3.org is a site devoted to converting Youtube videos to audio MP3s, that is widely popular, accessed by 1.3 million people each day. Google and Youtube argue [...]
The recent case of Inhale v. Starbuzz Tobacco, Inc. held that the shape of a water container to be used in a hookah device is not afforded protection under the Copyright Act. Inhale made a water container that had a specific design on it – a skull and crossbones, in 2008 and registered it with the [...]
In September 2011, a group of authors, as well as the Authors Guild and Australian Society for Authors, brought one of the largest copyright infringement suits in history against five major American Universities. These universities included University of Michigan, University of California, University of Wisconsin, Indiana University, and Cornell University. The suit, filed in the U.S. District [...]
On April 9, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania’s decision to invalidate patent claims asserted by Noah Systems, Inc. (“Noah”) against Intuit, Inc. (“Intuit”), because the claims were indefinite. At the center of this case was U.S. Patent No. 5,875,435 [...]
