Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, July 6, 2015 will be a discussion of the following cases:

Kickstarter, Inc. v. Fan Funded,  11 Civ. 6909, S.D.N.Y, Decided June 29, 2015 (available here).  Kickstarter brought a declaratory relief action against Fan Funded and ArtistShare that U.S. Patent No. 7,885,887 for “Method and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work” is invalid under Section 101 of the Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. § 101 and thus Plaintiff does not/cannot infringe it.  Kickstarter prevailed on summary judgment after the court’s application of the U.S. Supreme’s Court’s Alice decision, finding that the ‘887 Patent claims a patent-ineligible abstract idea.

16 Casa Duse, LLC  v. Alex Merkin et al., 13-3865, 2nd Cir., Decided June 29, 2015 (available here).  Here, Plaintiff was granted summary judgment on its copyright and state‐law
claims related to a film entitled Heads Up, but not its tortious interference claims.  This case posed the following question: May a contributor to a creative work whose contributions are inseparable from, and integrated into, the work maintain a copyright interest in his or her contributions alone? For this case, the court answered in the negative.  

All are invited to join us in our discussion during the SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, July 6, 2015 at Noon in our Westlake Village office. This activity is approved for 1 hour of MCLE credit. If you will be joining us, please RSVP to Noelle Smith by 9 am Monday morning.