For our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, May 11th, 2020 we will discuss the following cases:

Sinclair v. Ziff (S.D.N.Y) (available here)

Plaintiff was a professional photographer and sued the owner of a website for posting her photo. The Southern District of New York however dismissed the complaint. Plaintiff had previously posted the alleged infringing image on Instagram, according to Instagram’s terms of services, this allows Instagram to doll out valid sub-licenses of user content. Said the court “Unquestionably, Instagram’s dominance of photograph and video sharing social media, coupled with the expansive transfer of rights that Instagram demands from its users, means that Plaintiff’s dilemma is a real one. But by posting the Photograph to her public Instagram account, Plaintiff made her choice. This Court cannot release her from the agreement she made.”

We will also discuss two recent short decisions by the CAFC regarding IPRs

Cienna Corp. v. Oyster Optics, LLC and Andrei Iancu (available here)

This case sets a new rule that an IPR petitioner waiving an Arthrex issue cannot then raise the issue on appeal after losing the IPR.

Caterpillar Paving Products Inc. v. Wirtgen America, Inc. (available here)

All are invited to attend. Due to the Covid-19 situation the meeting will be conducted electronically via zoom. Join us by using this link. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Elisha Manzur by 9 am Monday morning.