Our weekly SoCal IP Institute meeting on Monday, November 23, 2015, will be a discussion of the following cases:

Keeling v. Hars (2nd Cir. October 30, 2015) (available here).  In a copyright action seeking to enforce plaintiff’s copyright in an unauthorized parody of the movie Point Break, the district court’s judgment for the plaintiff is affirmed.  The court held that an unauthorized work that stays within the bounds of fair use and adds sufficient originality can receive copyright protection.

In re: Steve Morsa (Fed. Cir. October 19, 2015) (available here).  In an action challenging the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision that a publication anticipates the claimed invention, the Board’s determination is affirmed.  The court held that it was acceptable to use the applicant’s own specification when determining the level of ordinary skill required and distinguished use of the applicant’s specification to fill in gaps in the prior art.