District of Massachusetts reduces jury-awarded damages by 90 percent in copyright infringement lawsuit By Abby Lauer – Edited by Jad Mills Sony BMG Music Entertainment et. al. v. Tenenbaum, No. 07cv11446-NG (D. Mass. July 9, 2010) Slip Opinion In a decision by Judge Nancy Gertner, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts reduced the damages awarded by a jury to members of the recording industry in a copyright infringement lawsuit. After finding defendant Joel Tenenbaum guilty of ... Read More...

Use of Common Words in Trademarks Can Still Dilute By Harry Zhou – Edited by Jad Mills Visa Int’l Serv. Ass’n v. JSL Corp., No. 08-15206 (9th Cir. Jun. 28, 2010) Slip Opinion On June 28, 2010, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada’s grant of summary judgment for Visa International Service Association (“VISA”) on its trademark dilution claim against JSL Corporation (“JSL”). Chief Judge Alex Kozinski delivered the opinion, holding that JSL’s “eVisa” ... Read More...

Stored Communications Act Protects Facebook and MySpace Users’ Private Communications By Kathryn Freund – Edited by Jad Mills Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc., CV 09-09509-MMM-JEMx (C.D. Cal. May 26, 2010) Order The Central District of California reversed and quashed Magistrate Judge McDermott’s order granting a subpoena to obtain private Facebook and MySpace messages and vacated and remanded his order granting a subpoena to obtain Facebook wall postings and MySpace  comments. Judge Morrow held that private messages sent using Facebook and ... Read More...

Federal Circuit Chooses Absurdity Over Judicial Claim Redrafting By Chinh Vo – Edited by Jad Mills Haemonetics Corp. v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., No. 2009-1557 (Fed. Cir. June 2, 2010) Slip Opinion On June 2, 2010, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed the claim construction of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts and vacated a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff in a patent infringement suit. Haemonetics Corp. (“Haemonetics”) had filed a patent infringement lawsuit ... Read More...

D.C. Circuit Denies FCC Jurisdiction to Mandate Net Neutrality By Tyler Lacey – Edited by Jad Mills Comcast Corp. v FCC, No. 08-1291 (D.C. Cir., Apr. 6, 2010) Slip Opinion The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which had asserted jurisdiction over Comcast’s network management policies and had ordered Comcast to cease discriminating against peer-to-peer network traffic. The D.C. Circuit held that the FCC does ... Read More...