A computer programmer for the Mega copyright piracy conspiracy, Andrus Nomm, 36, of Estonia, pleaded guilty recently in connection with his involvement with Megaupload.com and associated piracy websites. He was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for conspiring to commit felony copyright infringement. Assistant Attorney General…
How should I protect my intellectual property? Different types of intellectual property are protected by different means. In the United States, patents may be available to any person who “invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.”…
Indianapolis, Indiana – Judge Sarah Evans Barker of the Southern District of Indiana dismissed the patent infringement claims asserted in the amended complaint of pro se Plaintiff Dennis Lee Maxberry against ITT Technical Institute (“ITT”). Also included in Maxberry’s amended complaint were claims for copyright infringement, deprivation of disabled veterans’…
Washington, D.C. – The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a royalty award in Gaylord v. United States for copyright infringement committed by the United States Postal Service. Frank Gaylord, a World War II veteran and renowned sculptor, created The Column, consisting of nineteen stainless steel…
Portland, Oregon – Copyright attorneys for Jacobus Rentmeester of Westhampton Beach, New York sued for copyright infringement in the District Court of Oregon, Portland Division alleging that Nike, Inc. of Beaverton, Oregon infringed Rentmeester’s copyrighted photo of Michael Jordan. This photo, Registration Number VA0001937374, has been registered with the U.S.…
Delaware – A third member of an international computer hacking ring has pleaded guilty to conspiring to break into computer networks of prominent technology companies to steal more than $100 million in intellectual property and other proprietary data. Nathan Leroux, 20, of Bowie, Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit…
Fort Wayne, Indiana – An Indiana copyright and trademark attorney for Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) of Redmond, Washington sued in the Northern District of Indiana alleging that Ace Recycling, Inc. and Kevin Cawood, both of Fort Wayne, Indiana (collectively, “Defendants”), infringed copyrighted material belonging to Microsoft. Defendants have also been accused…
Hammond, Indiana – Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry of the Northern District of Indiana, Hammond Division, ordered SVT, LLC d/b/a Ultra Foods (“SVT”) to produce a copyrighted training video to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) in ongoing gender-discrimination litigation. In 2010, Tiffany Swagerty was rejected from a position as…
As explained in Monday’s blog post, in general a network operator should not be liable for its users’ activity as long as the operator merely acts as a passive conduit for Internet traffic. However, network operators who remain worried about the risk of liability for copyright infringement can consider another…
Open networks provide Internet access to the public. Users do not need to subscribe – they simply connect their devices, often over a wireless connection. For instance, the City of San Francisco recently deployed a free, public Wi-Fi network along a three-mile stretch of Market Street. Similarly, the Open Wireless…