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

Plaintiff filed separate copyright infringement suits against defendants for posting articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal online without authorization. In consolidated appeals, the court agreed with the district court that plaintiff lacked standing in both cases because agreements assigning plaintiff the bare right to sue for infringement did not transfer any associated exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. Because plaintiff lacked standing, the court also concluded that the court lacked jurisdiction to rule on the merits of the fair use claim. Therefore, the court affirmed the motions to dismiss in both cases, but vacated the portion of the district court order in Hoehn granting summary judgment on fair use. View "Righthaven LLC v. Hoehn" on Justia Law

Luvdarts sued mobile wireless carriers, who own multimedia messaging networks (MMS networks), for copyright infringement. At issue was whether the carriers could be held liable for copyright infringement that allegedly occurred on their networks. Because Luvdarts failed to allege adequately that the carriers had the necessary right and ability to supervise the infringing conduct, the district court properly determined that they could not prevail on their claim of vicarious copyright infringement. Because Luvdarts failed to allege adequately that the carriers had the necessary specific knowledge of infringement, it could not prevail on its claim of contributory copyright infringement. Accordingly, Luvdarts failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted and the district court properly dismissed its complaint with prejudice. View "Luvdarts LLC, et al v. AT&T Mobility, LLC, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, various film studios, alleged that the services offered and websites maintained by defendant and his company, isoHunt, induced third parties to download infringing copies of the studios' copyrighted works. This case concerned a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol known as BitTorrent. The court affirmed the district court's holding that plaintiffs had carried their burden of proving, on the basis of undisputed facts, defendant's liability for inducing others to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights. The court also affirmed summary judgment to plaintiffs on defendant's claims that he was entitled to the safe harbors provided by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512(a), (c), and (d). The court concluded that portions of the permanent injunction were vague or unduly burdensome, and therefore, modified the injunction in part. View "Columbia Pictures Industries v. Fung" on Justia Law

In this copyright infringement suit, SOFA claimed that Dodger infringed its copyright in using a seven-second clip of Ed Sullivan's introduction of the Four Seasons on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and could not justify its unlicensed use of the clip as "fair use." The clip was used in Dodger's musical about the Four Seasons, "Jersey Boys," to mark a historical point in the band's career. The court held that, by using the clip for its biographical significance, Dodger has imbued it with new meaning and did so without usurping whatever demand there was for the original clip. Dodger was entitled to prevail on its fair use defense as a mater of law and to retain the attorney's fees award granted by the district court. View "SOFA Entertainment, Inc. v. Dodger Productions, Inc., et al" on Justia Law

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

In this interlocutory appeal, Motorola appealed from the district court's preliminary injunction to enjoin Motorola temporarily from enforcing a patent injunction that it obtained against Microsoft in Germany. The underlying case before the district court concerned how to interpret and enforce patent-holders' commitments to industry standard-setting organizations (SSOs), which established technical specifications to ensure that products from different manufacturers were compatible with each other. Specifically, the case involved the H.264 video coding standard set by International Telecommunications Union (ITU), and the 802.11 wireless local area network standard set by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The court held that, under the unique circumstances of this case, the district court's narrowly tailored preliminary injunction was not an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Microsoft Corp. v. Motorola, Inc., et al" 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