Features

Recently filed cases in entertainment law, straight from the steps of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

Features

The Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, Division Five, affirmed the disqualification of a law firm from representing plaintiffs in litigation over the late singer Eva Cassidy.

Recent cases in entertainment law.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that singer Debra Laws' state right-of-publicity claim over the use of her voice in a Jennifer Lopez sound recording and music video was preempted by federal copyright law. <i>Laws v. Sony Music Entertainment Inc.</i>

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Tax-treatment and copyright-reversion issues are among the most complicated concerns songwriters and music publishers face. This article examines a recent change in federal tax law regarding the sale of musical compositions, as well as related tax and reversion issues.

It is unquestioned that technology is becoming more complex, building on what has come before. In 1965, Gordon Moore prophesized that the number of transistors on a chip would double about every 2 years. To put this in context, in 40 years, the number of transistors on a chip has risen from mere thousands to nearly 1 billion. <i>See www.intel.com/technology/silicon/mooreslaw/</i>. A corollary to Moore's law is that the price will necessarily decrease each generation, putting more computing power into consumers' hands at ever-lower costs. The technologies that allow more information to be packed into an ever-smaller space at lower costs are increasingly complex.

35 U.S.C. &sect;101 defines processes, machines, manufactures, and compositions of matter as the categories of inventions that can be the subject matter of a patent. 35 U.S.C. &sect;100(b) defines the term 'process' to mean 'process, art, or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material.' Section 101 also requires that the subject matter sought to be patented be 'useful.'

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The landmark decision of the Supreme Court in <i>MercExchange LLC v. eBay</i>, 547 U.S. __ (2006), has left many inventors and patent owners disappointed, as the Supreme Court sided with eBay and set aside the prior decision of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ('CAFC'). A closer reading of the decision, however, seems to indicate a balanced approach that gave both sides something to brag about.