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Biggest IP cases of 2002
scubacuda writes "Law.com's article, The Biggest IP Cases of 2002, has a nice summary of some of the intellectual property cases that have caught our attention this last year. Of particular interest to slashdotters: Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corp. (regarding Arriba's visual search engine), Enzo Biochem Inc. v. Gen-Probe Inc. (regarding
a gene patent being invalid because it did not meet the written description requirement), an Illinois federal court injunction against Aimster, United States v. Elcom Ltd a/k/a Elcomsoft Co. Ltd. , and Playboy Enterprises Inc. v. Welles (regarding Playmate of the Year, Terri Welles, using Playboy's marks and metatags on her website)."
The law is an ass. (which by implication must mean it's best not to feed it or it will shit on you.)
Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma.
Tsk! I'm insulted that you think all slashdotters are porn-obsessed losers. Can't we get away from this sort of stereotype?
[5 seconds later]
Of course, it would be unfair not to be fully aware of both sides of the argument, so I'll have to thoroughly inspect her website. Purely for research purposes, you understand ...
At first I was relieved to see no actual nudity on the site, until I found this.
At least it's tastefull.
The ongoing case against the retroactive extension of copyright duration is also very important to many people, including The Mutopia Project. Though of course, which cases are most important depends on your point of view.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Put a catchy IP trial header.
Put it as a Top 10 list of the year
Mix in Playboy in the summary
Now that you've got everyone's attention, put one of the top playmates's personnal webpage address, and witness the explosive results
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
156.102.116.238
*Crosses fingers*
you've slashdotted Playboy!!!
Umm... so if I go take a dump in a public toilet, I own a patent on what I 'deposited'...? U.S. Patent law is insane!
I mean it. Lawsuits are a sign of freedom. They're a sign that the government has decided to leave as much as possible to the free market and the law of contract and tort, and not to come in with a big wet fucking nanny agency.
HA HA HA HA HA! You know, most of the people on here claiming they are lawyers are actually just losers who probably don't have any degree, let alone one in law. But YOU sir, I can state with nearly 100% certainty that you definitely ARE a lawyer! Because only a lawyer would say "lawsuits are freedom".
No, lawsuits are not freedom. They are a waste of time and money for both sides, and in the untested waters of the internet, can have random or nonsensical outcomes.
Too many lawsuits are a sign that the laws are not aligned with the wishes of the people, and with the design of a free market. Adam Smith said that "free markets are self-organizing" so if you need constant litigation to keep it going, something is wrong.
Now, I'm not talking about all lawsuits. When someone violates a contract then the law should step in to uphold the free market.
I'm talking specifically about 1) "unsigned" shrink-wrap contracts in software and other forms of information; 2) "intellectual property" laws like the DMCA that make tools illegal, and REMOVE the legal system from the equation when it comes to ISP take-downs; and 3) stupid patents that the government issues.
A little mom-and-pop web site getting sued for patent infringement because they took the "Sears catalog" model of "putting pictures next to prices" is not freedom, in any sense of the word. That stuff is a MISTAKE, a pox on the free market system, a form of government regulation that should not be allowed. Patents should cover *tangible* and *novel* inventions.
Sklyrov should never have been sued or even blinked at. Software that removes "protections" has been used since the 80's, and it didn't hurt the market back then, and it won't hurt it now.
I really wouldn't feel "free" if I get a cease & desist because I wrote a program to copy DVDs. That's not a free society, that's a corporate-run society, probably not any better than the European-style socialism if it continues.
Lawsuits are freedom!! Ha! Sounds like something Pres. Bush would say.
Eldred is a very interesting case. I'm optimistic the retroactive portion of the law stands a 50:50 chance of being struck down, despite the Court's conservatism and traditional deference to Congress in similar matters. As for prospective copyright terms, I really doubt the court will intervene, because the life+70/95 terms are not obviously unreasonable, esp. when compared to law in other countries -- even if they do seem a tad long as a matter of judgment.
EFF has done a nice job collecting legal materials as its website, useful as a reference even if one disagrees with their position.
What to make some money while testing your legal and psychic prowess? Try this contest.
hmm.. she's not even that good looking.
I'm a geek, spent too long in doors. me thinks....
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Mo "Telephone call for IP Freely, IP Freely? IP Freely anyone? Oh dang kids! when I catch them!"
(1) The best argument doesn't always win. Sometimes the lawyer who wins is the one who gets the ideologically sympathetic judge.
... or makes the most persuasive case that the judge's life hangs in the balance. Maybe these things don't happen (much) in America, but they do happen around the world (e.g. Colombia vs. Medellin cartel) and throughout history (e.g. late Roman republic).
... but Big Money? To my thinking, it's teachers and garbage collectors who deserve the Big Money -- try running a civilzation without those professions, see how ugly things get real quick.
Worse: in some systems, the lawyer who wins is the one who makes the biggest payoff to the judge
(2) What makes lawyers so deserving of Big Money? A living wage, sure
Of course, some lawyers work pro bono for the causes in which they believe. That's not good capitalism, but it's truly heroic.
That said, I agree with your point: better a free market legal system than a bloated bureaucracy.
-kgj
MacAndrew wrote: "because the life+70/95 terms are not obviously unreasonable, esp. when compared to law in other countries ..."
I wonder if you know any other country having a longer term than the US (life+70/95)? To the best of my knowledge all other countries have had lower terms. Those that have changed have done so after US "nudging". Only one country, Australia has publicly stated they will not increase it over 70, India has 60 years limit, and Taiwan has refused to accept US demands to increase it to 95 years.
Yes, but just a couple. Some very industrious people compiled this list.
Even were the US the longest, it would have to be so by a good margin to stick out. Again, I don't necessarily think the current terms are appropriate. Judge Posner has criticized them well, and noted that the main problem is that because it is difficult to make money off materials in the public domain, there was little opposition to the Sonny Bono Act.
And the parent's post's .sig was almost relavent. If only it said "Beware of all enterprises that require *no* clothes.".
Sex - Find It
Thanks for the list.r oast-pi g-copyright-102202.html
It seems to me that the Eldred v. Ashcroft is not so much a challenge to the number of years, but rather to the very right of Congress to make such extensions indefinitely.
Lawrence Lessig, says:
http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/10/
"The Constitution says that copyrights are to be "for limited Times." The framers initially set those "limited Times" to be quite short--14 years, renewable once. After a limited time, copyrighted work was to pass into the public domain--a lawyer-free zone where publishers and creators can draw upon creative work without fear of legal liability. This text, the challengers say, forbids the extension of existing terms."
It does not appear that the Sonny Bono Act furthers the purposes of copyright law for a number of reasons. First, the Act applies retroactively to subsisting works. Second, adding another extension to the 70 year period does not appear to add any further incentive to authors. Third, simply because we were trying to conform with other countries does not mean the Congress is immune from limitations placed on it by the Constitution. And finally, it appears that the law was passed more to protect corporate interests than the public.
... the useful Arts", but instead allow the corporations to continue exploiting the works for another twenty years.
The constitution in Article I, 8 clause 8 says that "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" Congress may secure to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries for "limited times." In other words, the founders noted that in order to create incentives for authors to create works, it was necessary to grant them an exclusive right for a limited time for the work they created. Otherwise, one could spend a great deal of time and skill creating a new work merely to have someone else make the profit. In applying the Sonny Bono Act to subsisting works, Congress appears to have broadened the grant of power given to them by the founders. For once the work has been created upon the existing notion of copyright protection, there is no longer the need to provide any incentive to the author. The founders appear to have conditioned Congress' ability to protect authored works for limited times to promote the useful Arts. Once that Art has been created, Congress has therefore fulfilled its duty in providing the incentive. A retroactive extension of the time period does not in any way affect the incentive to create a work that has already been created. Therefore, a retroactive extension of the copyright protection does not further the purposes of copyright law.
Secondly, though Congress was granted the ability to determine what "limited times" means, there has to be some point at which Congress has overstepped its authority. Clearly, if Congress granted copyright protection for 900 years, it would be, by definition, a "limited time", but also be beyond what was needed to create an incentive for authors. Arguably, Congress' extension of the existing time period defeats the purpose of the limited time limitation if Congress is then again free to add another extension. Were Congress to continue such a practice, "limited times" would be in name only. Rather, it would be, in essence, an unlimited time. Therefore, there must be a point at which Congress can no longer grant an extension to an existing time period, especially for subsisting works.
Thirdly, Congress cannot justify its actions based on international law. One of the reasons given for this law was to bring us up to the same time period as other European countries so we would receive the benefit of reciprocity. However, as noted during oral arguments, if France were to declare that all hate speech was unprotectable, Congress could not pass a law stating the same in the interest of international IP harmony.
Finally, the biggest proponents of the Act are the giant media corporations who do not wish to see works they own to fall into the public domain. Quite a bit of lobbying and campaign contributions went into pressuring Congress to pass the Act. As such, one has to wonder, when pondering the retroactive aspects of the bill, whether the purpose was merely to reward and protect the giant media corporations. If this is the case, and I think one could make a good argument that it is so, then Congress is clearly not trying to "promote
Therefore, taking into account that extending the period for subsisting works does nothing to promote the useful Arts, that continually extending the time period is, in essence, an unlimited time, and that a strong argument could be made that the Act was more about reward corporate interests than allowing works to fall into the public domain, it appears the Act does not further the purposes of copyright law.
First, there's Kelly vs. AribaSoft, which held that thumbnail images are fair use. That's a good decision; it means we can have image indices, like Google's.
Then there's Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress, regarding copyrights on the text of laws. Some states outsourced their building code creation to a semiprivate organization, which then claimed copyright on the text. The decision was clear: "'The law,' whether articulated in judicial opinions or legislative acts or ordinances, is in the public domain and thus not amenable to copyright." That's consistent with the general rule that when a government does something via a contractor, the government does not escape any obligations it would have if it did the job in-house. So you can scan in your local building code (or all the building codes in the country) and put it on line, even if some private company drafted the building code book.
I don't know if this is the biggest IP case of 2002, but it's one of the funniest: Mattel v. Universal [warning: pdf link], which concerns MCA Records' release of a single called "Barbie Girls" (which, of course, drew a lawsuit from lawsuit-happy Mattel). Judge Alex Kozinski, one of the most hilarious judicial opinion-writers of our time, called this "the battle between "speech-Zilla and trademark-Kong."
A story used the words "Intellectual" when referring to "Terri Welles" site!
Even more quietly, IBM fired whoever filed the paperwork for this patent in the first place.
Yep. There are two arguments in the quoted passage: First, that Congress has abused the meaning of "limited time"; second, that retroactive extensions of "existing terms" are prohibited. I'm sympathetic to the second, and think the first is for Congress not the courts.
I do sort of wish the Court would intervene to say the term has gotten too long, but don't want a precedent like that for the Court to do so in other cases. Historical experience has been that although unchecked power of Congress is bad, the unreviewable power of the Court can be worse, as when it was busy invalidating the New Deal. Given precedent, I don't think th Court will, and I'd prefer we petition Congress, as has happened with the DMCA.
But who cares what I think -- here is the transcript of the Oct. 9 oral argument, which discussion well describes the essentially simple dipute.
LOL! Is that the G-rated version? :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I made a spoof banner for LAW.COM years ago. . .let the lawsuits begin!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Not exact scripts, but the Simpsons Archive has the highlights of each episode at least. Lot of cool stuff there :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Why do they take everything you own when you need help?
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I think the list is for cases completed through the court system. If it wasn't, I'm sure we would have seen PanIP, and Scientology vs. Google, Internet Archive, and other assorted Scientology vs. The Internet threats.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Umm... so if I go take a dump in a public toilet, I own a patent on what I 'deposited'...? U.S. Patent law is insane!
Only if what you have desposited is useful, original, and nonobvious to a "pracitioner of the art." If you can do that, then I'd see a gastroenterologist before a patent attorney if I were you.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").