Clause & Effect
May 30, 2007
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan decided that unresolved issues of fact as to whether a distributor or a record label abandoned a record-distribution agreement precluded summary judgment for either party on breach claims by the distributor.
Counsel Concerns
May 30, 2007
The U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada granted summary judgment in part for Nevada-based entertainment attorney John Mason on his claim of breach of legal-services agreements by a film-production company.
'New' Summit Structure Retains Distribution Fees
May 30, 2007
Summit Entertainment's $1 billion movie financing deal ' which created a new production and distribution studio ' all started with a group of bankers and lawyers sitting around and talking about how to get more money from movie-financing deals. In recent years, investors have invested in films that are distributed by studios, which take a distribution fee of about 10% to 15%. With the Summit deal, the investors for the first time cut the middleman in this process.
Cameo Clips
May 30, 2007
Digital Downloading/No Public Performance; Management Agreements/Tortious Interference.
Decision of Note: Mexican TV Co. Can Proceed in Florida Fed Court
May 30, 2007
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit decided that a Florida federal district court, rather than a Mexican court, should hear a suit by one Spanish-language broadcaster against another for tortious interference with a soap-opera actor's contract.
Supreme Court Re-Invigorates 'Obviousness': KSR v. Teleflex Decision
May 30, 2007
On April 30, 2007, Justice Anthony Kennedy delivered a unanimous decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in <i>KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc.</i>, reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ('Federal Circuit') and, in effect, re-invigorating obviousness under 35 U.S.C. §103 as an available defense to a patent.
Trademark Fair-Use Analysis Hits Snag
May 30, 2007
Few issues in trademark and advertising law can compete in importance with this: whether a competitor can use another's trademark in advertising its products or services. With the battle for consumer attention growing increasingly aggressive as the number of products and services proliferate, and the means for advertising and promoting them expanding at an even more alarming rate, the importance of brands and their recognition by consumers ' and the surrounding legal issues ' have never been more significant.
Product-By-Process Claim Construction: Conflict in Federal Circuit Precedent Remains Unresolved
May 30, 2007
Construing claims that use the process by which a product is created to define the invention ' that is, product-by-process claims ' was not made any easier by the Federal Circuit's recent decision in <i>SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Apotex Corp.</i>, 439 F.3d 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2006). The Federal Circuit again declined to resolve the long-standing conflict between two decisions ' the 1991 decision in <i>Scripps Clinic & Res. Foun. v. Genentech Corp.</i>, 927 F.2d 1565 (Fed. Cir. 1991), which held that product-by-process claims <i>should not</i> be limited by the process steps in the claims, (<i>i.e.</i>, such claims cover an identical end-product regardless of the steps used) and the 1992 decision in <i>Atlantic Thermoplastics Co. v. Faytex Corp.</i>, 970 F.2d 834 (Fed. Cir. 1992), which held that product-by-process claims <i>should</i> be construed to only cover the end-product if produced by the specifically claimed process steps. As explained below, this state of affairs warrants that patent applicants and litigants stay tuned to the case law and adjust their respective claim drafting and analysis strategies accordingly.
