A Kinder Approach to Cease and Desist Letters In the world of intellectual property, the “Cease and Desist” letter is king. These are letters from attorneys for the owner of a work or invention, sent to an alleged infringer of the owner’s intellectual property rights. The letters cite the legal basis for the owner’s claim, […]
Tag Archives: litigation
Attorney’s Fees: Adding Insult to Injury
February 6, 2023
Copyright
*Originally posted on December 17, 2020 In addition to an award of statutory damages, the ability to obtain attorney’s fees is often touted as an advantage of registering a copyright. Indeed, it is a strong incentive for some lawyers to take copyright infringement cases on a contingency basis. What’s not often discussed is that should […]
Question: When is the Largest Patent Infringement Judgement in U.S. History Not a Judgement? Answer: When the judge’s wife owns $5,000 worth of stock in the infringer! The amount at stake was $2.75 Billion. That’s Billion, with a ‘B,’ the largest patent infringement judgement in U.S. history. The parties were Centripetal Networks, Inc., the patent owner, […]
Ask Dr. Copyright About Bringing Lawsuits
January 28, 2021
Ask Dr. Copyright
Dear Doc: I’ve heard you say many times that Americans have a right to sue each other for any reason, so lawyers can’t tell their clients that they won’t get sued, only that in a properly adjudicated case, they have a high probability of prevailing. Aren’t there ANY limits on lawsuits? Signed,Fed Up Dear FU: […]
Dear Doc: Is the song “This Land is Your Land” in the Public Domain? Signed,A. Singer Dear A: Back in 2004 the website JibJab posted a video in which John Kerry and George W. Bush had a rap-battle to the tune of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” Kerry called Bush a “right wing nut job” and Bush […]
Don’t Mess with Texas
July 14, 2017
Litigation, Patent
The Eastern District of Texas is a large rural Federal judicial district. The biggest city is about the size of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Not what you would expect of a hotbed of patent litigation. Nonetheless, the Eastern District of Texas has dominated patent infringement litigation for years. In the first quarter of 2017, patent plaintiffs filed […]
Have a Great Idea for BMW? Forget About It!
March 1, 2016
Litigation
Have you ever had a great idea for an existing product? Were you dying to approach the manufacturer to suggest it? Do you think that the manufacturer would even listen to you? David Lazarus, an LA Times reporter, recently wrote about this subject. Mr. Lazarus recounts the experience of a Dr. Ron Aryel, who approached […]
Most parties to litigation have to pay their own attorneys’ fees. The patent statute includes an exception – in “exceptional” circumstances, the successful party in patent infringement litigation can collect attorneys’ fees from the losing party. Not every losing litigant is liable for the other party’s fees. The reasonableness of the party’s litigation position and the unreasonableness […]
Busy, Busy, Busy
June 28, 2014
Patent
The Supreme Court has had a busy time of it in June stirring the patent pot, with decisions in three cases and arguments in a fourth. The general rule is that whenever the Supreme Court decides a patent case, the law is left in worse shape than it was before. The recent decisions are no […]
What Happened to Google Street View?
March 30, 2014
Patent
Google Street View is the popular feature of Google Maps that allows you to see panoramic photographs of, well, pretty much anywhere with different orientations and magnifications. The photographs are stitched together in software to allow the viewer to navigate through a virtual representation of the real world. You may have seen the Google photography […]
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