After mutual effort put into resolving the issue of counterfeit Tiffany products being sold on eBay, all discussion has ceased and an interesting lawsuit has emerged. The question is whether website owners are going to bear an onerous burden of policing their websites, one atom at a time. Under the principle of contributory trademark infringement, that might just be the case.
Contributory trademark infringement implies that if there is a platform which effectuates infringement, then the owner of such platform is liable. In the Gucci case, the United States Southern District Court of New York established that an ISP could not absolve itself of liability of its users who were indulging in trademark infringement.
Undue Burden?
Knowledge of infringement is not enough to hold one liable, however, willful part-taking is closer to home. Past measures of actual notice of infringement and take down have worked well, but Tiffany is reaching far and beyond this. Tiffany wants that eBay police sellers of counterfeit goods under a microscope in the virtual world.
Is if fair? Is it possible …well with advancing technology much is or soon could be possible; question would be how economical and strenuous would that be for website owners?
There are numerous efforts to curb sales of counterfeit products in the physical world and often times the pace of sale is greater than the policing. However, in the virtual world, time can be caught up with significantly, even if not beaten.Even if this case sets a precedent which does not fare well for website owners, I am positive that technology could change the length of time such legal reasoning shall survive.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Some sparkles sometimes spark!
Monday, November 12, 2007
Patent Infringement Law Suit Against the Tech Moguls
Performance Pricing, Inc. ("Plaintiff") sued Google, AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo ("Defendants") in the District Court, Texas on September 27, 2007 for patent infringment.
Performance Pricing, Inc. claims that the Defendants indulged in unauthorized use of its patent (U.S. Patent No. 6,978,253) the summary of invention of which is, as follows:
"invention comprises a business model used to determine the price of goods and/or services to be provided from a seller or sellers to a buyer or buyers.
One Aspect...involves a method of doing business over a global communications network comprising the steps of: communicating to a buyer via the global communications network, ....accepting a first request .....accepting a second request ....while participating in a Price-Determining-Activity (PDA) ...receiving data from the buyer over the global communications network...
Another aspect ...involves a method of determining a price of a product using a global communications network, ...communicating to a buyer via the global communications network, data representing a plurality of products available, ....accepting acknowledgement ...said acknowledgement being communicated over the global communications network; determining the performance of the buyer; and assigning a price to the product, ..."
Performance Pricing claims that the Defendants used their patented technology without permission and seeks injuction in light of "impairment and irreperable damage to their patent rights."
The latest of documents was filed on November 07, 2007 for a motion to extend time for a response to the Plaintiff's Complaint by Defendant A9.com.
AA v Google
Friday, November 02, 2007
Scrabulous - Infringorous!!!
This is the conversation in my head.
Scrabble Player: Hmm…the online board looks very similar to the real scrabble board
(Ding! TM enthusiast awakens. Similar!…who owns what?)
Scrabble Player: What is troubling is that the color codes for scoring high points in pink, dark blue and light blue are identical to the original pattern in Scrabble. Yet, there is a difference. Yes! That’s it. The colored boxes just do not state clearly what scoring advantage the color stood for.
(Ha! very smart, but any self respecting scrabble player can easily identify what the box color denotes.)
Scrabble Player (Disgusted): The most annoying part is when words from other languages could be made, for instance pina (Spanish for pineapple)!!!! FAKE
Exit disgruntled scrabble player and the Trademark enthusiast is raring and rearing to go.
Information on Scrabble website says Hasbro owns it all.
(http://www.hasbro.com/games/adult-games/scrabble/home.cfm?page=about)
“SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A. and Canada by Hasbro Inc. and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons, PLC of Enfield, Middlesex, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.”
http://www.hasbro.com/home/copyright.html
Scrabble at the very least owns a trademark right in the name, a trade dress in the look of the board.
In Two Pesos, Inc., v Taco Cabana, Inc, the Court laid down a five part test for determining whether a trade dress was inherently distinctive or had it acquired a secondary meaning.
i. Does the Plaintiff have “trade dress”?
ii. Is the Trade Dress functional/non-functional?
iii. Is the Trade Dress inherently distinctive?
iv. Has the Trade dress acquired a secondary meaning in the concerned market?
v. Does the alleged infringement create confusion, in the mind of ordinary consumers, as to source/association of product with goods/services?
A trade dress must be non-functional and must be unusual and memorable.( See I.P. Lund Trading ApS v. Kohler Co. “Whether the dress is so unique, unusual and unexpected in this market that it will automatically be perceived by customers as an indicator of origin”.) To be protectable under the Lanham Act, it is necessary for the product trade dress to show secondary meaning i.e. a certain product identifies with the source of the product.
However, an impediment to finding such trade dress is the functionality doctrine. The functionality doctrine as the Supreme Court’s dictum in Re Inwood Labs., established that if the product feature is essential for the use and purpose of the article or effects the cost and quality of a product, then that feature is functional.
But what about the colored tiles?
Qualitex Co. v Jacobson Products Co. Inc settled that concept back in 1995 by showing that though colors cannot be inherently distinctive, they can acquire recognition and a secondary meaning if the color is used over time and three factors are established:
i. This color acted as the source identifying factor
ii. The color did not undermine the need for that color in the industry
iii. Color was not functional
Quite obviously, the color coded tiles in the Scrabble board are easily identifiable as being associated with Scrabble, anybody else can use different colors to follow a similar concept and the colors pink and shades of blue certainly do not mean high points. (See Yankee Candle Company v Bridgewater Candle Co., LLC where the label color was gold implying opulence and thus failing to be inherently distinctive)
On the ground of trademark alone, there is
· Trademark infringement under 15 U.S.C 1114;
· False designation of origin under 15 U.S.C 1125(a);
· Violation of the Anti-dilution provision under TDRA
Otherwise, frustrating software allowing random words. Will SCRABBLE do something about it?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
For, By and Of the People
In Golan v Gonzales[1] Judge Henry ruled that, a provision in the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (“URAA”)[2] that allows for material in the public domain to regain copyright protection, would have to meet either a strict or intermediate scrutiny, at remand. The Tenth Circuit considered the URAA provision as going beyond the traditional contours of the Copyright Clause and consequently being a serious impediment in free exercise of expression. It remanded the case to the District Court for a scrutiny subject to the First Amendment interest.
The plaintiff’s first argument was that by increasing the term for protection from 50 years plus life to 70 years plus life, the Copyright Term Extension Act (“CTEA”) violated the “limited Times” protection in the Copyright Clause of the Constitution. The Ninth Circuit in Kahle v Gonzales[3], recently rejected a similar argument stating that it was within the scope of Congress’s power to rationally determine the amount of time required to benefit authors and keep the “engine of free expression” alive[4]. The Tenth Circuit agreed with the holding of Kahle and disagreed that such extension implied the term of protection was “effectively perpetual”.
On another issue of First Amendment and the Copyright Clause, the Court determined that the Copyright Clause would be subject to First Amendment review only if the “traditional contours of copyright” had been altered. Explaining that a limited copyright protection attaches to a work at the time of inception, the Tenth Circuit found that URAA had exceeded such a traditional contour of copyright law by not following the sequence of creation, copyright and duration. The URAA effectively altered the ordinary sequence by copyrighting works which had fallen into public domain.
Quoting Ward v Rock Against Racism where it was stated that the "right to artistic expression is close to the core of First Amendment", the Tenth Circuit concluded a First Amendment interest exists in works in the public domain. It's reasoning was simple - others are protected in using the publicly available works to make their own independent creations. Thus, works in the public domain belong in the public domain and to allow otherwise, would require a First Amendment scrutiny.
Finding the idea/expression dichotomy and fair use to be inadequate armory for defending against the threat to free expression, the Court found that removal of works from the public domain was a dangerous proposition. Fair use, did not provide a “breathing space” for free expression, but instead §514 of the URAA effectively infringed upon the users First Amendment rights. The “built in free speech safeguards”[5] presumes that an authors rights extinguishes after the work enters the public domain. Such protection is inadequate in protecting First Amendment interests against URAA §514 as the URAA provided only a safe harbor by allowing use for a year after restoration, it did not contain the supplemental First Amendment protection.
The District Court must now determine whether §514 of the URAA altered the traditional contours of copyright protection affecting the plaintiff’s right to free expression.
----------------------------------------------------------------
[1] http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/05/05-1259.pdf
[2] Pub. L. No. 103-465, 108 Stat. 4809, 4976-80 (1994), codified at 17 U.S.C. §§104A, 109
[3]http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/1FABEA163F4C714A8825726B005A12F0/$file/0417434.pdf?openelement
[4] Harper & Row Publishers Inc.v. Nation Enters., 471 U.S. 539, 558 (1985)
[5] See Eldred v Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186 (2003)
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Zeus, will you prevail again?
(i) the entire text for public domain works
(ii) few sentences of the copyrighted work based on the search query
(i) there be a valid ownership of copyright, and
(ii) the protectable copyrightable elements are copied
“(i) the extent of regular market harm that defendant caused, and
(ii)the extent of market harm on potential market for the original that would occur if there is ‘unrestricted and widespread conduct of the sort engaged in by the defendant.’”
– Bible, Warning Against the Invitation of Sinful Men (Pr 1:19)
The modern day Zeus – Google is caught in the web of power and ethics. The Titans – the copyright holders, though divided in the outcome are nonetheless united in their pledge. Google claims de minimis use in an attempt to cover up the violation of the right of reproduction of the copyright holder and undermines the very basis for which copyright law stands – incentive to promote creation and dissemination. The question lingering in the air is whether displaying a glimpse of your ill gotten gain would make the ill gotten gain itself, valid. Are the snippets valid when the snippets root from an illegal act? The Second Circuit has a novel situation before it and yet it seems that the novelty is superficial. Brush away the glittery sand and one is suspicious. Logic seems to lean towards finding an act, associated and based on another illegal act, illegal itself.
- Brief: Authors Guild v. Google Inc
- Brief: Association of American Publishers v Google Inc,
- 6Susan Wojcicki, 'Google Print and the Author's Guild', 20 September 2005
- David Drummond, 'Why we believe in Google Print', 19 October 2005 M. Nimmer, Copyright 2.11[B], p. 2-159 (1984)
- Bible, Pr-1:19
[1] The doctrine of associational standing comes from Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197 (1975); is where it was stated that:
“a) An association has standing to bring suit on behalf of its members when
(1) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right;
(2) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and
(3) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation in the lawsuit of each of the individual members.”
[2] The Brief filed by The Authors Guild with associational authors who are plaintiffs. This was filed on September 20, 2005 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (2nd Cir.)
[3] The Brief filed by AAP who are plaintiffs. This was filed on October 19, 2005 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (2d Cir.)
[4] 17 U.S.C. § 106 gives the owner of a copyright “to do or authorize the doing of…” any of the exclusive rights.
[5] The Brief filed by AAP who are plaintiffs. This was filed on October 19, 2005 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (2d Cir.)
[6] Susan Wojcicki, 'Google Print and the Author's Guild' (20 September 2005) at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/google-print-and-authors-guild.html
and David Drummond, 'Why we believe in Google Print' (19 October 2005) at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/why-we-believe-in-google-print.html
[7] 17 U.S.C §108 (2005) requires that for libraries and archives to make non-infringing copies, the copy must be made by a library or archive or by employees of such acting within the scope of their employment. These copies are made primarily for reasons of preservation. Further this copy should not be associated with any commercial purpose. Legislative history in H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476 at 74 has been interpreted to not permit "a non-profit institution, by means of contractual arrangements with a commercial copying enterprise, to authorize the enterprise to carry out copying and distribution functions that would be exempt if conducted by the non-profit institution itself."
[8] 17 U.S.C § 108 (g) (2) (2005) says that “the rights of reproduction and distribution under this section …do not extend to cases where the library or archives, or its employee—
engages in the systematic reproduction …of multiple copies …material described in subsection (d): Provided, That nothing in this clause prevents a library or archives from participating in interlibrary arrangements that do not have, as their purpose or effect, that the library or archives receiving such copies or phonorecords for distribution does so in such aggregate quantities as to substitute for a subscription to or purchase of such work.
[9] See "dwfaq.com/Tutorials/Miscellaneous" (“The robots-txt file is added to the root directory of the websites to help control the indexing of the site by robots that ignore the convention. In this file are listed any pages that one doesn’t want searched and indexed”)