Jones Day Talks: Women in IP: The Supreme Court's "Copyright Day"
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that a copyright holder’s voluntary dismissal of its claims did not render the defendant a prevailing party entitled to attorneys’ fees under...more
Addressing the symmetrical fee-shifting provision of the Copyright Act and whether a prevailing defendant was entitled to fees even when the plaintiff moved to dismiss the case in response to a change in law, the US Court of...more
Addressing the award of attorneys’ fees under the Copyright Act, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s finding that a defendant was not the “prevailing party” for purposes of a fee award...more
On July 24, 2018, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision that can be an important tool to help copyright owners enforce their rights. It’s not unusual for copyright owners to believe that it’s just not worth going after some...more
Addressing attorneys’ fees in the context of a breach of contract claim, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit reversed the district court’s limited award of attorneys’ fees, finding the award inconsistent with the...more
Copyright infringement litigation has been on the rise in recent years, particularly in the Central District of California, with the apparel industry feeling the brunt of this uptick. In a typical case, a plaintiff alleges...more
Supreme Court Abolished Federal Circuit's Test for Willfulness - On June 13, 2016, in Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, Inc., 579 U.S. ___ (2016), the Supreme Court unanimously abrogated the Federal Circuit’s...more
Under 17 USC § 505, a “court may . . . award a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party.” However, when deciding whether to award attorneys’ fees under the Copyright Act’s fee-shifting provision, 17 USC § 505, the...more
The Copyright Act states that the trial court “may…award” attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. Legal fees incurred by plaintiffs and defendants alike in copyright and other intellectual property cases can be staggering,...more
The case of Kirstaeng v. Wiley hit the headlines in 2013 when the Supreme Court held that importation and sale in the United States of books bought from the copyright owner in Thailand was not an infringement of copyright,...more
Within the past week, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two unanimous rulings that could make it easier for prevailing parties in patent cases to recover enhanced damages and for winning parties in copyright cases to recover...more
In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., the Supreme Court clarified the test for awarding attorney’s fees when applying the Copyright Act’s discretionary fee-shifting provision, 17 U.S.C. § 505. The Court held that the...more
It is a common misperception that a party will automatically recover its attorneys’ fees if it prevails in an action for copyright infringement. First, certain statutory requirements must be met in order to qualify for the...more