Indiana Intellectual Property Law News
Hammond, Indiana – An intellectual property attorney for J & J Sports Productions, Inc. (“J & J Sports”) of Campbell, California filed two federal lawsuits in the Northern District of Indiana, both alleging illegal interception of a cable signal for the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. v. Robert Guerrero, WBC Welterweight Championship Fight Program (“Program”). One lawsuit named Jorge Zamora, individually and d/b/a El Sombrero Bar of East Chicago, Indiana. The other lawsuit named JP & P, Corporation and Jose L. Gonzalez, individually, both d/b/a Michigan Avenue Bar and Grill of Hammond, Indiana.
J & J Sports states that it is the exclusive domestic commercial closed-circuit distributor of the Program. It has sued multiple Defendants, both individually and doing business as commercial entities, under the Communications Act of 1934 and The Cable & Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992. Specifically, Defendants have been accused of violating 47 U.S.C. § 605 and 47 U.S.C. § 553 by displaying the Program at issue on May 4, 2013 without an appropriate license. A count of conversion is also included.
Plaintiff has sued two Defendants as individuals, alleging that they had the right and ability to supervise the activities of the commercial establishments that allegedly engaged in the illegal interception. J & J Sports asserts that the activities that they supervised included the unlawful interception of Plaintiff’s Program. J & J Sports contends that the individual Defendants specifically directed the employees of the restaurants to unlawfully intercept and broadcast Plaintiff’s Program at the commercial establishments or, if they did not, that the actions of the employees of the restaurants are directly imputable to the Defendants sued as individuals by virtue of their purported responsibility for the activities of their respective restaurants. In the second lawsuit, a corporate Defendant has also been sued. This lawsuit also lists “Loida Chavarria as a Defendant in paragraph 10, although she has not been listed as a Defendant in the caption of the complaint.
In both of these interception complaints, the intellectual property attorney for J & J Sports listed the following counts:
• Count I: Violation of Title 47 U.S.C. § 605
• Count II: Violation of Title 47 U.S.C. § 553• Count III: Conversion
J & J Sports asks for damages, as well as costs and attorneys’ fees.
The cases were assigned to Senior Judge James T. Moody and Magistrate Judge John E. Martin as well as Judge Rudy Lozano and Magistrate Judge Paul R. Cherry the Northern District of Indiana and assigned Case Nos. 2:15-cv-00174-JTM-JEM and 2:15-cv-00175-RL-PRC.