U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) has requested the Administrative Conference of the United States, the federal agency tasked with making federal functions more efficient, to conduct a study into the feasibility of having a unified, singular federal office devoted to intellectual property, combining the registration and prosecution functions currently handled by both the United States …
Category: copyright
Presidential Inauguration Day
This is something trivial, but important to the daily IP practice. Consistent with 5 U.S.C. §6103(c), which deems “January 20 of each fourth year after 1965, Inauguration Day, is a legal public holiday . . . . ,” the USPTO is closed. The Copyright Office is also closed for the presidential inauguration. Any deadlines that …
Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021
On December 27, 2020, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, the annual defense spending bill, was signed into law. Focused on COVID-19 relief and funding the federal government operations, there are also several IP-related authorizations approved in the bill itself. First, the Copyright Alternative in Small Claims Enforcement Act of 2020 (CASE Act) creates a …
Arguing Takings of IP Rights is, Sadly, a Losing Proposition
The Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment states that private property “shall not be taken for public use, without just compensation.”[1] Intellectual property rights – patents, trademarks, copyrights, and other IP – have long been considered property rights. This belief, however, has been tested by the Supreme Court’s reluctance to specifically define IP as a …
Collecting Royalties Indicative of Authorship, not Work for Hire
On August 21, 2019, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled in an interesting example of what is deemed “work for hire,” as defined by the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §201(b), in Morricone Music Inc. v. Bixio Music Group Ltd..[1] Ennio Morricone is the late Italian composer of several musical film scores, which …
Constitution Day
Today is Constitution Day. On this day, September 17, 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed thirty-nine Founding Fathers, ushering the birth of the United States. Several clauses in the Constitution have direct import to intellectual property. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 is the Patent and Copyright Clause, which is the basis of U.S. patent …
SCOTUS Watch: Costs Recovered Limited as Specified in Copyright Act
In the second copyright case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 4, 2019, Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc.,[1] the high court dealt with the question of whether “full costs” is more than the costs set forth in either 28 U.S.C. §1821 or §1920. Both Oracle and Rimini Street are competitors in …
SCOTUS Watch: Registration Required Before Infringement Action
On March 4, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a pair of copyright decisions that will affect copyright owners’ ability to sue and recover in federal court. The first, Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Sreet.com, LLC,[1] settles a split in the appellate circuits concerning when a copyright owner may sue for copyright infringement – …
No Digital First Sale Doctrine, per Second Circuit
Technology has always been a few light years ahead of the law, and when the law catches up, tech usually has moved on to the next big thing. So, because of the glacial pace in which case law does expand, which is an inverse relationship with tech, it sometimes creates problems on the technical aspects …
Government Shutdown Effect on IP Offices
At midnight on Friday, December 21, 2018, the U.S. government entered a partial shutdown, which means all non-essential federal departments will close operations until funding has been appropriated by Congress. This includes national parks, NASA, and federal agencies. Those exempt include airports and the U.S. Postal Service, which will continue normal service through Christmas Eve, …