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On Feb. 21, 2006, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, 427 F.3d 958 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The question presented is: 'Does Article III's grant of jurisdiction of 'all Cases ... arising under ... the Laws of the United States,' implemented in the 'actual controversy' requirement of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. '2201(a), require a patent licensee to refuse to pay royalties and commit material breach of the license agreement before suing to declare the patent invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed?' Whether the Court affirms or reverses the Federal Circuit, which answered in the affirmative, undoubtedly will affect the balance of power between patentees and their licensees and, perhaps, the willingness of licensors to grant licenses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found a genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether a film-option agreement required a film to be released initially in theaters. LaHaye v. Goodneuz Group LLC, 04-55839. Rev. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Christian-book series 'Left Behind,' had filed suit against a production company over a film based on one of the books. The appeals court first found in its unpublished opinion that there…

Recent cases in entertainment law.

In order to avoid liability for trademark infringement relating to the sale of keywords corresponding to trademarks, search engines, including Google, are attacking the concept that trademark owners should be able to protect the 'commercial magnetism' of their marks. Recently, in Rescue.com v. Google, Inc., No. 5:04-CV-1056 (N.D.N.Y.), Google argued that the trademark laws 'are not meant to protect consumer good will [sic] created through extensive, skillful, and costly advertising.' Google's Reply Brief at 4 n.4 (2005) (citing Smith v. Chanel, Inc., 402 F.2d 562, 566 (9th Cir. 1968)).

Script writers for both television sitcoms and dramas have been given the license to be as raunchy as they like during the creative process ' as long as their raw talk doesn't single out specific people as the butt of the jokes. In a case that put the entertainment and publishing industries on edge ' and had some Hollywood honchos speaking out ' the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sexually coarse and vulgar language is often a necessary part of the creative process when producing a hit TV show. Lyle v. Warner Brothers Television Productions.

The common wisdom before, and during, the London copyright infringement trial over Dan Brown's book 'The Da Vinci Code' (DVC) was that the plaintiffs Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh would lose because an idea cannot be copyrighted. And the plaintiffs did lose. Baigent v. Random House Group. Some even suggested the plaintiffs sued only to bolster the sale of their own book, 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail', which is what happened ' though High Court Justice Peter Smith ordered the plaintiffs to pay $1.75 million in legal costs. The number of additional copies the authors will have to sell to earn enough royalties to pay that amount is high. Still, the case was one of those signal attempts to reconsider exactly what authorship is for copyright law purposes.

Recent rulings of interest.