Copyrights

The Supreme Court sparked a seismic shift in patent litigation recently when it upset the long-standing interpretation of 28 U.S.C. §1400(b), the special patent venue statute. TC Heartland held that for the purposes of patent venue, the meaning of "resides" in Section 1400(b) is not supplemented by the broad definition of "resides" in the general venue provision, 28 U.S.C. §1391.

Since 2007, the development of the musical has been the source of protracted litigation that reached its latest stage in June 2017.

The Supreme Court let stand a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision that said issuers of takedown notices aren't liable under the DMCA unless they actually knew that the material did not infringe their copyright, or were willfully blind to that knowledge.

'Disparaging' Trademarks Decision
High Court Declines Takedown Notice/Fair Use Case

Mash-Up of Dr. Seuss/Star Trek Components Is a Fair Use

While copyright registration normally constitutes prima facie evidence of copyright ownership, the court noted that the estate had registered the song copyright 31 years after it was originally published and only in response to the defendants' sampling of the song on Drake's album.

First the copyright infringement case over the use of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine in a Broadway play was dismissed by a New York federal judge. Then it rounded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, but was tagged out again. Now, in its third at bat, the lawsuit struck out with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review the case.

A Miami company's decision to defend a small-potatoes copyright case all the way to trial paid off when the case was dismissed after a few hours — by an angry federal judge.