Class Action Seeks Compensation for Use of Likeness of Former NCAA Players By Ian B. Brooks – Edited by Sarah Sorscher Class Action Complaint, O’Bannon v. NCAA, No. CV 09-3329 (N.D. Cal. July 21, 2009) Complaint Former National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) player Edward C. O’Bannon, Jr. filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of former NCAA student-athletes in the US District Court for the Northern District of California against the NCAA, the Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), and multiple alleged ... Read More...

Federal Circuit Finds Infringement Even After Product No Longer Meets Claim Limitations At Final Sale By Ezra Pinsky – Edited by Sarah Sorscher Gemtron Corp. v. Saint-Gobain Corp., No. 2009-1001 (Fed. Cir. July 20, 2009). Slip Opinion On July 20th, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court (Western District of Michigan) decision to grant a permanent injunction against Saint-Gobain because their refrigerator shelves infringed on Gemtron’s patent. The district court held that the ... Read More...

By Sharona Hakimi Amazon Threatened with Class Action for Remotely Deleting Orwell E-books on Kindles On July 20, MediaPost News reported that the law firm KamberEdelson is readying a class action lawsuit on behalf of consumers against Amazon for removing George Orwell books on owners’ Kindles. Amazon remotely deleted the e-books from users after discovering that the company that added them to the online catalog did not have rights to the books. Amazon did issue refunds to the owners, but ... Read More...

Class Action Complaint Alleges Facebook Click Fraud By Brian Kozlowski – Edited by Jad Mills RootZoo, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc., 5:09-cv-03043-HRL (N.D Cal. July 7, 2009) In a federal court complaint filed in the Northern District of California on July 7th, sports discussion board and social networking site RootZoo alleged that Facebook charged them for advertising referrals that never occurred and that Facebook failed to “properly guard” against click fraud, the practice of third-party individuals or computer programs repeatedly clicking ... Read More...

Federal Circuit Holds Yellow Bean Patent Obvious and Invalid By Dmitriy Tishyevich – Edited by Jad Mills In re POD-NERS, L.L.C., July 10, 2009, No. 2008-1492 (nonprecedential) Slip Opinion On July 10, 2009 in a per curium decision, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“Board”) decision invalidating the patent claims for a yellow bean of Mexican origin. The court held that the applicant failed ... Read More...