Justia U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Mattel filed suit against MGA, claiming that MGA infringed Mattel's copyrights by producing Bratz dolls. On appeal, Mattel challenged the jury's verdict that Mattel misappropriated MGA's trade secrets and the district court's award of attorneys fees and costs to MGA under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 505. The court held that MGA's claim of trade-secret misappropriation was not logically related to Mattel's counterclaim and therefore, the court reversed the district court's holding that MGA's counterclaim-in-reply was compulsory. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs under the Act, the court affirmed that award. View "Mattel, Inc., et al v. MGA Entertainment, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

This case arose from a dispute over the character Superman that Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster jointly created and thereafter gave rights to DC Comic's predecessor. Defendants appealed the district court's denial of defendants' motion, pursuant to California's anti-SLAPP statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code 425.16, to strike certain of DC Comics' state law claims. At issue was whether the court's decision in Batzel v. Smith remained good law after the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter. In Batzel, the court held that the collateral order doctrine permitted a party to take an interlocutory appeal of an order denying motions to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute. The court held that such motions remained among the class of orders for which an immediate appeal was available. Thus, the holding in Batzel remained good law and the order denying the motion to strike pursuant to the anti-SLAPP statute remained immediately appealable pursuant to the collateral order doctrine. Therefore, the court had jurisdiction and decided the merits in a memorandum disposition filed concurrently. View "DC Comics v. Pacific Pictures Corp., et al" on Justia Law

Washington Shoe brought suit against A-Z for, among other things, copyright infringement. At issue was whether A-Z, an Arkansas retailer, was subject to personal jurisdiction in Washington. The district court dismissed the action for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court held that Washington Shoe presented evidence that A-Z engaged in intentional acts that willfully infringed its copyright, knowing that it would adversely impact Washington Shoe in the state of Washington, and knew or should have known both about the existence of the copyright and the forum. Thus, A-Z's intentional acts were expressly aimed at Washington Shoe in Washington and the harm was felt in Washington. The district court therefore erred in dismissing the action. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Washington Shoe Co. v. A-Z Sporting Goods Inc." on Justia Law

RSA appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment dismissal of RSA's claim for copyright infringement, related to pilot escort vehicle manuals, against Evergreen on the ground of laches. The court held that Evergreen did not willfully infringe upon RSA's copyright because it acted under color of title and in good faith. The court also held that the alleged future infringements named as the basis for the injunctive relief were identical to the original infringements and were thus barred by laches as well. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Evergreen Safety Council v. RSA Network Inc." on Justia Law

USAP brought suit against Parts Geek and various individuals alleging, among other things, copyright infringement in certain e-commerce software. The district court granted summary judgment against USAP on its claim of copyright infringement because it concluded that USAP did not own the allegedly infringed copyright. Because there were genuine issues of material fact as to whether USAP owned a copyright in all or part of the software at issue, the court reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "U.S. Auto Parts Network, Inc. v. Parts Geek, LLC, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed an action for copyright infringement, as well as unjust enrichment and accounting, against defendants. According to plaintiff, defendants infringed her purported interest in a book and two screenplays that together allegedly formed the basis for the 1980 motion picture "Raging Bull." The court held that plaintiff's copyright infringement claim was barred by laches and therefore did not reach the merit of the claim itself. The court also held that, because laches was an equitable defense, the court agreed with the district court that laches also barred plaintiff's unjust enrichment and accounting claims. The court further held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's sanctions and attorney's fees motions. View "Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

In this case the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals noted, "This appeal reads like a telenovela, a Spanish soap opera. It pits music celebrities, who make money by promoting themselves, against a gossip magazine, that makes money by publishing celebrity photographs, with a paparazzo, who apparently stole the disputed pictures, stuck in the middle." Noelia Monge and Jorge Reynoso ("the couple"), Latin American celebrities, claimed that Maya Magazines, Inc. and Maya Publishing Group, LLC (collectively, "Maya") infringed their copyrights by publishing previously unpublished photos of their clandestine wedding in "TVNotas," a Spanish-language celebrity gossip magazine. The district court granted Maya summary judgment on the ground that publication of the images was fair use under the Copyright Act of 1976. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that Maya did not sustain its burden of establishing that its wholesale, commercial use of the previously unpublished photos constituted fair use, and thus, the district court should have granted the couple's summary judgment motion on this issue. Remanded. View "Monge v. Maya Magazines, Inc." on Justia Law

L.A. Printex appealed the district court's summary judgment order in favor of defendants in L.A. Printex's copyright infringement action. The parties' dispute stemmed from a floral design created by an L.A. Printex designer that later appeared on shirts bearing defendants' trademark. The court held that L.A. Printex raised a genuine dispute of material fact on access and substantial similarity. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment, vacated the award of attorneys' fees, and remanded for further proceedings.

Music Companies sued East Coat and Hudson for eight counts of copyright infringement, corresponding to the eight songs ASCAP's independent investigator heard publicly performed at the Long Beach Roscoe's House of Chicken and Waffles. East Coast and Hudson appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Music Companies for the eight counts of copyright infringement, as well as the district court's award of attorney's fees and costs to the Music Companies. The court held that the district court was correct to conclude that the investigator's uncontested declaration was sufficient to establish that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether copyright infringement occurred at the Long Beach Roscoe's. Because no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether East Coast and Hudson controlled and derived financial benefit from the infringing performances, the district court properly held that Hudson and East Coast were liable for copyright infringement. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees and costs. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

UMG filed suit against Veoh for direct and secondary copyright infringement where users of Veoh's service have in the past been able, without UMG's authorization, to download videos containing songs for which UMG owned a copyright. The district court granted summary judgment to Veoh after determining that it was protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. 512(c), "safe harbor" limiting service providers' liability for "infringement of copyright by reason of the storage at the direction of a user of material that resides on a system or network controlled or operated by or for the service provider." The court affirmed the district court's determination on summary judgment that Veoh was entitled to section 512(c) safe harbor protection where Veoh met all the section 512(c) requirements. The district court also affirmed the district court's dismissal of the claims of secondary liability against the Investor Defendants. The court further affirmed the district court's determination that, in this case, attorney's fees could not be awarded under Rule 68. The court remanded for the district court to consider in the first instance whether Veoh was entitled to Rule 68 costs excluding attorney's fees.