22 Wednesday May 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Oregon
Court Case Number: 3:13-cv-00855-MO
File Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Plaintiff: Voltage Pictures, LLC
Plaintiff Counsel: Carl D. Crowell, Jonathan T. van Heel of Crowell Law
Defendant: Jim Choi
Cause: Copyright Infringement
Court: Oregon District Court
Judge: Judge Michael W. Mosman
See other Oregon Download Cases.
20 Monday May 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Oregon
Apparently undaunted by the previous mass dismissals, Voltage Pictures has moved forward with their BitTorrent litigation strategy by filing a copyright infringement action against a single IP address. I’m reluctant to forecast Voltage Pictures’ next move, but I suspect this is a test case that, if financially successful, will result in hundreds of individual filings.
[Update: A commenter has informed that the Defendant in this case was one of the first to respond with a Motion to Quash in one of the original Voltage Pictures cases, 3:13-cv-00295-AC. The Defendant, represented by Swider Medeiros Haver LLP, was released from that case as a part of the mass dismissals undertaken last week by Judge Aiken.]
Court Case Number: 3:13-cv-00836-BR
File Date: Friday, May 17, 2013
Plaintiff: Voltage Pictures, LLC
Plaintiff Counsel: Carl D. Crowell, Jonathan T. van Heel of Crowell Law
Defendant: Doe IP 76.115.46.230
Cause: Copyright Infringement
Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon
Judge: Judge Anna J. Brown
See other Oregon Download Cases.
07 Tuesday May 2013
Posted in District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Oregon, Trademark
Tags
Breach of Contract, Declaratory Relief, Litigation Update, Paul Papak, Trademark Infringement, Unfair Competition
Despite the termination of a distributorship license, Defendant allegedly continues to market itself as the exclusive United States importer and distributor of Netherlands-based Technivorm’s Moccamaster coffee makers on the internet. This case was transferred from the Northern District of Illinois.
Court Case Number: 3:13-cv-00762-PK
File Date: Monday, May 06, 2013
Plaintiff: Technivorm, B.V.
Plaintiff Counsel: Todd Alan Holleman of Miller, Canfield, Paddock And Stone, PLC
Defendant: Boyd Coffee Company, Boyd Coffee Distribution Company
Cause: Trademark Infringement, Breach of Conract, Unfair Competition, Declaratory Relief
Court: Oregon District Court
Judge: Magistrate Judge Paul Papak
28 Sunday Apr 2013
Posted in Intellectual Property, Oregon, Trademark
This isn’t a David and Goliath story because Okojobi decided to give in, but certainly you’d think the Ducks have larger fish to fry. The University of Oregon has decided to challenge the Okojobi Pioneers, a northwest Iowa high school (with 250 students), for using an “O” as their athletic logo.
Here’s the trademark registration that Oregon likely claimed was infringed:
Apparently, all other “O”-formative schools across the nation should be on the lookout for a cease and desist letter in the near future if they’re using a similar font. New scoreboards, uniforms, bookstore supplies, web redesign, etc. aren’t cheap for a small rural school.
Click here for the full story.
22 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Litigation, Oregon
Well, that didn’t take long. Just a few weeks after an Ohio judge expressed skepticism about Voltage Pictures’ litigation strategy in the download cases, Oregon Judge Ann Aiken has expressed similar concerns. However, rather than directly severing the hundreds of cases, Judge Aiken has issued an “Order to Show Cause,” allowing Voltage to respond to these issues. The full Order (see below) is only six pages, but here are a few excerpts:
…the court is mindful of the growing popularity of copyright holders to use courts as tool for identifying alleged infringers as a means to seek quick settlements without actually litigating the cases in court. The failure to amend the complaints in these cases leads the court to suspect that plaintiff in this case may be seeking to use the this court in such a manner while keeping the litigation costs to minimum.
In addition to showing cause as to why the cases should not be dismissed for failure to follow a court order, plaintiff is ordered to show cause why defendants should not be severed and plaintiff required to pay the requisite filing fees to pursue a case against each individual defendant.
Voltage Pictures responded over the weekend with the following Response to Order to Show Cause (and accompanying Declaration of Counsel):
08 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Litigation, Oregon
Tags
Voltage Pictures, the Plaintiff in several Oregon download cases, has met a roadblock in Ohio federal court in the form of Judge James S. Gwin. Judge Gwin ordered, sua sponte, that Voltage Pictures had improperly joined hundreds of Defendants. The Judge has severed the cases, requiring Voltage to pay appropriate filing fees in order to continue. Here are some highlights and the full Opinion & Order is below:
Because IP addresses are the only identifiers of peers within a BitTorrent system, it is difficult, if not impossible, to learn the true identities of the peers in a swarm.21 To pursue litigation, plaintiffs in BitTorrent suits must attempt to get early discovery to learn of the actual identities of the unnamed defendants.22 The requests have been the subject of much criticism, for the lawsuits are rarely litigated. Rather, plaintiffs seek to take advantage of the resources of federal courts to force small, individual settlements.23
Courts have been troubled by what amounts to be a new business model employed by production companies “misusing the subpoena powers of the court, seeking the identities of the Doe defendants solely to facilitate demand letters and coerce settlement, rather than ultimately serve process and litigate the claims.”41 This unseemly practice is made worse by the frequent practice of joining hundreds or thousands of defendants in a suit, saving plaintiffs tens of thousands of dollars in filing fees. It is in this environment where courts must take every caution to ensure that the keys to the doors of discovery are not blithely given to parties with other intentions.
Regardless of the dubious practices of others, Plaintiffs may have legitimate claims which deserve litigation. Nevertheless, unnamed Defendants are improperly joined, and in order to continue with their actions, Plaintiffs will need to pay the requisite filing fee per suit.42 Otherwise, Plaintiff has saved over $67,500 by consolidating its claims into four separate actions. If Plaintiffs seek to use the powers of this Court to vindicate its rights, it must pay the requisite fees like every other Plaintiff.
Time will tell if Oregon will make a similar ruling, which essentially shifts some of the financial burden for these download cases from the taxpayer to the Plaintiff.
Opinion & Order, James S. Gwin, United States District Judge:
06 Saturday Apr 2013
Posted in District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Oregon, Trademark
Tags
False Designation of Origin, Litigation Update, Thomas M. Coffin, Trademark Infringement, Unfair Competition, Unlawful Trade Practices
Plaintiff InsightsNow, Inc. is a Corvallis-based company that has been offering a market research service in the consumer packaged goods industry called “BehaviorLens“. Plaintiff’s claimed date of first use in commerce is August 26, 2011. Defendant SuperPsyched is a Colorado based app-maker with an app for tracking student behavior called “BehaviorLENS“. Defendant’s date of first use in commerce is October 11, 2011. In response to an initial cease and desist letter, Defendant apparently made efforts to distinguish its trademark and services but not to the satisfaction of Plaintiff, resulting in this lawsuit.
Court Case Number: 6:13-cv-00573-TC
File Date: Wednesday, April 03, 2013
Plaintiff: InsightsNow, Inc.
Plaintiff Counsel: Delfina S. Homen, Hillary S. Brooks of Marger Johnson & McCollom PC
Defendant: SuperPsyched, LLC
Cause: Trademark Infringement, False Designation of Origin and Unfair Competition, Unlawful Trade Practices
Court: Oregon District Court
Judge: Magistrate Judge Thomas M. Coffin
03 Wednesday Apr 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Litigation, Oregon, Privacy
Check out an Answer filed in one of the Oregon download cases:
Remember a time when a concerned father and business owner could talk over and settle a dispute involving a teen son “shoplifting”? The question the rest of us should be asking is whether U.S. federal courts are the ideal place to have those conversations? Keep in mind that the administrative expense of these “collections” lawsuits falls largely on the taxpayer.
29 Friday Mar 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Oregon
Tags
Contributory Copyright Infringement, Copyright Infringement, Indirect Infringement of Copyright, Litigation Update, Thomas M. Coffin
Court Case Number: 6:13-cv-00539-TC
File Date: Thursday, March 28, 2013
Plaintiff: RynoRyder Productions, Inc.
Plaintiff Counsel: Carl D. Crowell, Jonathan T. van Heel of Crowell Law
Defendant: Does 1-23
Cause: Copyright Infringement, Contributory Infringement, Indirect Infringement of Copyright
Court: Oregon District Court
Judge: Magistrate Judge Thomas M. Coffin
See other Oregon Download Cases.
23 Saturday Mar 2013
Posted in Copyright, District of Oregon, Intellectual Property, Litigation, Oregon
New York-based publisher Penguin Group’s battle against Oregon-based nonprofit American Buddha continues in Oregon after being dismissed in New York for lack of personal jurisdiction. American Buddha has uploaded complete copies of books and other media onto American Buddha’s online library that is accessible by some 50,000 members at no charge. Four of the books posted belong to mega-publisher Penguin, which claims copyright infringement. American Buddha claims (in the American Buddha Online Library Copyright Notice) to be operating safely under 17 U.S.C. Section 108, which exempts libraries and archives from liability for creating reproductions (under certain conditions). It seems a stretch to apply Section 108 to PDFs posted on a website but American Buddha claims to impose “contractual and technical limitations on access to the archive” that could potentially bring it within the contours of 108. “Library” isn’t defined in the Copyright Act but the context of 108 suggests it be interpreted in the traditional manner, as a real, physical location, not an online repository. It seems yet another part of the Copyright Act that might need clarification in the digital age. Stay tuned as the parties sort it out.
Court Case Number: 3:13-cv-00497-HU
File Date: Friday, March 22, 2013
Plaintiff: Penguin Group(USA) Inc.
Plaintiff Counsel: Duane A. Bosworth, II, Timothy M. Cunningham of Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP
Defendant: American Buddha
Cause: Copyright Infringement
Court: Oregon District Court
Judge: Magistrate Judge Dennis J. Hubel
Oregon Intellectual Property Blog 