On Monday, July 27, we will consider the principal arguments in the pending 9th Circuit en banc rehearing of the Kat Von D copyright case. In addition, we’ll discuss a TTAB case that exposes a losing maintenance strategy for foreign owners of U.S. registrations based on Section 44(e) or Section 66. The plaintiff’s Petition for [...]
Two Federal Circuit Reversals, One Lesson: Words Matter - From Patent Prosecution to Hypothetical Copyright Negotiations Two Federal Circuit decisions from this July share a common thread: courts won't let hindsight or selective memory rewrite the record. In 4DD Holdings, LLC v. US, No. 24-1996 (Fed. Cir. 2026), the court vacated a copyright damages award [...]
Copyright Cases: Rights Reservation does not Eliminate Standing for Licensed Rights and Fifth Time's the Charm for Ricky Martin Great Bowery Inc. v. Consequence Sound LLC et al. (available here) Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz entered into an agreement with a licensing agency, Great Bowery, granting it the exclusive, worldwide right to "license, market, and promote" [...]
SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH COX COMMUNICATIONS IN MUSIC PIRACY CASE, NARROWING GROUNDS FOR CONTRIBUTORY LIABILITY On Monday, March 30, we will discuss a hot-off-the-press Supreme Court decision that makes it significantly more difficult to hold service providers responsible for their users’ copyright infringement. In Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment (March 25, 2026), the Court [...]
State of AI in Intellectual Property Law Copyright Law In the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Thaler v. Perlmutter was decided about one year ago on March 18, 2025. In that case, Dr. Stephen v. Thaler sought to register the copyright in the work "A Recent Entry into Paradise" [...]
Copyright in the Input, Uncertainty in the Output 2.o: The Legal Grey Area Expands Unsurprisingly, generative artificial intelligence (“AI” - an abbreviation whose definition has now entered common parlance, yet I provide one anyway for the non-AI user) makes headlines… again. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, recently released Seedance 2.0, a video-based generative AI model [...]
AI and IP for Lawyers & Paralegals In our SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, October, 20 2025 we will discuss AI issues for IP lawyers. The PowerPoint slides may be found here. Michael Harris, a partner at SoCal IP, will lead the discussion.
Copyright in the Input, Uncertainty in the Output: Navigating the Legal Grey Zone of AI Training In the era of artificial intelligence ("AI"), and more specifically software services based on large language models ("LLM"), the legal grey area may have just become a little less grey. Two recent orders issued by two Judges for the [...]
AI and Copyright Several recent cases address the interrelationship of artificial intelligence and copyright law. Courts seem to be getting the idea a bit, and to at least have questions on the way in which AI functions. Rather than dismiss cases outright, courts are starting to explore how the use of content - particularly to [...]
Please join us Monday, July 8, 2024 where we will discuss several disparate topics, including: Recovery of Patent Priority Date when an anniversary for US or PCT filing is missed. Do Italian art heritage laws trump EU copyright law? A recent example of using the Better Business Bureau to police the use of the registered [...]
