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

Defendants appealed from the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction against them in an action for copyright infringement by plaintiff. The district court found that plaintiff was likely to succeed in its infringement suit and granted the injunction relying on the long-standing precedent of this circuit that presumed irreparable harm in copyright infringement cases upon a showing of likelihood of success on the merits. The court held that, in light of eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. and Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., this circuit's long-standing practice of presuming irreparable harm upon the showing of a likelihood of success on the merits in a copyright infringement case was no longer good law. Accordingly, the court held that even in a copyright infringement case, the plaintiff must demonstrate a likelihood of irreparable harm as a prerequisite for injunctive relief, whether preliminary or permanent. Accordingly, the court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings.

This appeal stemmed from the district court's summary judgment dismissing Fleischer Studios, Inc.'s (Fleischer) copyright and trademark infringement action where the district court ruled that Fleischer held neither a valid copyright nor a valid trademark in the Betty Boop cartoon character and therefore lacked standing to sue. The court held that because the chain of title was broken, the district court properly dismissed Fleischer's copyright infringement claim. The court vacated and remanded to the district court for further proceedings on Fleischer's trademark infringmenet claims regarding the Betty Boop word mark because it was unable to ascertain a legal basis for the district court's reasoning on the current record.

CollegeSource, Inc. (CollegeSource), a California corporation with its principal place of business in California, sued AcademyOne, Inc. (AcademyOne), a Pennsylvania corporation with its principal place of business in Pennsylvania, in federal district court for the Southern District of California, alleging that AcademyOne misappropriated material from CollegeSource's websites. AcademyOne moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and the district court granted its motion. The court held that AcademyOne was subject to specific personal jurisdiction, but not general personal jurisdiction, in California with respect to CollegeSource's misappropriation claims. Under the doctrine of pendant personal jurisdiction, AcademyOne was also subject to personal jurisdiction in California with respect to the remainder of CollegeSource's claims. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's dismissal of CollegeSource's complaint and remanded for further proceedings.

Mavrix Photo, Inc. (Mavrix), a Florida Corporation with its principal place of business in Miami, sued Brand Technologies, Inc., an Ohio corporation with its principal place of business in Toledo, and its CEO (collectively, Brand), in federal district court for the Central District of California, alleging that Brand infringed Mavrix's copyright by posting its copyrighted photos on its website. Brand moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdictional and the district court denied Mavrix's motion for jurisdictional discovery and granted Brand's motion to dismiss. The court reversed and held that Brand was not subject to general personal jurisdiction in California, but that its contacts with California were sufficiently related to the dispute in this case that it was subject to specific personal jurisdiction.

Perfect 10 moved for a preliminary injunction against Google, arguing that it was entitled to an injunction because Google's web and image search and related caching feature, its Blogger service, and its practice of forwarding Perfect 10's takedown notices to chillingeffects.org constituted copyright infringement. Perfect 10 also argued that it was entitled to an injunction based upon Google's alleged violation of the rights of publicity assigned to Perfect 10 by some of its models. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying Perfect 10's request for preliminary injunctive relief. The court held that Perfect 10 had not shown a sufficient causal connection between irreparable harm to Perfect 10's business and Google's operation of its search engine. Therefore, the court held that because Perfect 10 had failed to satisfy this necessary requirement for obtaining preliminary injunctive relief, the district court's ruling was not an abuse of discretion.

The United States appealed from the district court's dismissal of several counts of an indictment charging defendant with, inter alia, numerous violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"), 18 U.S.C. 1030, when defendant recruited employees of his former employer to obtain trade secrets and other proprietary information by using their user accounts to access the employer's computer system. At issue was whether the employees had exceeded their authorized access by accessing information that they were entitled to access only under limited circumstances. The court reversed the district court's decision and held that an employee, like the employees at issue in this instance, exceeded authorized access under section 1030 when he or she violated the employer's computer access restrictions, including use restrictions.