USPTO Implements Mandatory Electronic Filing for Trademarks and Clarifies Specimen Requirements Posted on March 16, 2020 Changes to the Trademark Rules of Practice to Mandate Electronic Filing, 84 Fed. Reg. 37081 (proposed July 31, 2019). New rules mandating electronic filing for most trademarks went into effect on February 15, 2020. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) will now conduct all formal trademark application and registration correspondence through the Trademark Electronic Application System (“TEAS”), with...
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The Workout Playlists are Back: Peloton Settles with the National Music Publishers Association over Copyright Infringement Claim Posted on March 16, 2020 Downtown Music Publ'g LLC v. Peloton Interactive, Inc., 19cv2426(DLC) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 29, 2020) On February 27, 2019, Peloton Interactive, Inc., the exercise equipment company that developed the popular Peloton Bike, announced the settlement of a claim brought by ten members of the National Music Publishers Association (“NMPA”), the largest trade association of music publishers in the United States. The NMPA...
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New Mexico v. Google LLC: Children’s Privacy in the Age of e-Learning Posted on March 16, 2020 Complaint, New Mexico v. Google LLC (D.N.M. Feb. 20, 2020)(No. 1:20-cv-00143-NF-KHR). New Mexico’s Attorney General has sued Google alleging that it is collecting personal data from children through its G-Suite for Education (“Google Education”) services in violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”), 15 U.S.C. §  6502 (1998), the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act (“UPA”), N.M. Stat. §...
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Prager University v. YouTube: Ninth Circuit Dismissal Affirms YouTube’s Status as Private Forum Posted on March 09, 2020 Prager University v. YouTube, LLC, No. 18-15712 (9th Cir. Feb. 26, 2020). Is YouTube a public forum? While Prager University (“PragerU”) sees the video hosting platform as one, the Ninth Circuit recently disagreed. PragerU first introduced the suit in the District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit first began over YouTube’s “Restricted Mode,” an optional feature that...
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Trump Campaign Sues New York Times in Libel Suit Over Opinion Piece on Russia Posted on March 09, 2020 Complaint, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. v. New York Times, Co. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Feb. 26, 2020) (No. 152099/2020). On February 26, 2020, President Trump’s re-election campaign filed a defamation suit against The New York Times over an opinion piece by Max Frankel, headlined “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo.” The piece claims that the Trump campaign had an...
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Chooseco v. Netflix: Who Will Get to Choose Their Own Adventure? Posted on February 26, 2020 Chooseco LLC v. Netflix, Inc., No. 2:19-cv-08 (D. Vt. Feb. 11, 2020). Netflix recently was denied its motion to dismiss a lawsuit over its Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch. Chooseco—the company that owns the trademark rights to the children’s book series Choose Your Own Adventure—sued Netflix in January 2019 for trademark infringement, trademark dilution, and unfair competition. Unlike other episodes of...
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Clearview AI Responds to Cease-and-Desist Letters by Claiming First Amendment Right to Publicly Available Data Posted on February 25, 2020 In an interview with CBS This Morning, Hoan Ton-That, the CEO and founder of Clearview AI, argued that the company has a First Amendment right to access and scrape publicly available information. The start-up has scraped more than three billion photos from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other websites for its app that uses facial recognition technology to identify people in...
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Federal Agencies Track Immigrants at the Border Using Purchased Cell Phone Data Posted on February 24, 2020 Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) has been purchasing access to the location data of millions of cell phones in America since 2017. This information has been used detect and later arrest undocumented immigrants who may be entering the United States illegally. In one case, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”)...
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Patel v. Facebook: Facebook Settles Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) Violation Suit Posted on February 14, 2020 Patel, et al. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 3:15-cv-03747-JD (N.D. Cal. Aug. 8, 2019), hosted by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). Facebook announced that it will pay $550 million to settle Patel v. Facebook, a class-action suit alleging that Facebook’s facial recognition technology violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”), 740 Ill. Comp.Stat. 14/5(e). This record-breaking payout far exceeds...
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New York State Senator Introduces “Social Media Hate Speech Accountability Act” Posted on February 12, 2020 S.B. 7275, 2019–20 Leg. Sess. (N.Y. 2020) On January 15, 2020, New York State Senator David Carlucci (D) introduced Senate Bill 7275, titled the “Social Media Hate Speech Accountability Act.” The bill seeks to amend New York’s general business law to include a definition of hate speech and require social media platforms to create a “transparent procedure” for its timely...
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