Free Republic

A federal judge has dismissed radio host Michael Savage's copyright infringement lawsuit against the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations, which had posted excerpts of one of his programs online. Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco ruled that the clips, totaling four minutes out of the two-hour Savage Nation program that ran on Oct. 29, 2007, constituted a fair use. "Defendants used plaintiff's material in order to criticize and comment on plaintiff's statements and views," Illston wrote in the 21-page ruling. Savage filed suit for copyright infringement and racketeering last December. Among other allegations, Savage asserted that the CAIR took his statements...

America’s Unknown Competitive Edge by: Daniel Smith, July 30, 2008 Believe it or not, America not only has not lost its competitive edge in the world, but, in at least one key sector, has achieved an advantage. For Pfizer, Inc., which employs 85,000 employees, intellectual property (IP) “is the foundation of [their] ability to discover and develop innovative new medicines,” the company CEO Jeff Kindler told a congressional committee. A generation ago, according to Kindler, Europe produced eight out of ten drug innovations. Today, however, America produces eight out of ten. Kindler encapsulated the importance of IP in a formula:...

As every federal judge must be painfully aware by now, an estimated 30,000 ordinary people2 have been sued during the past four years in U.S. district courts by the world’s four largest record companies, EMI, SONY BMG, Warner Brothers Records, and Vivendi/Universal, or their affiliates. The suits have been brought for alleged infringement of sound recording copyrights. Although these companies are represented by a trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), none of the hundreds of other members of this association has participated in the litigation campaign. The large majority of the defendants have defaulted, and the default...

The Patent and Trademark Office has now made clear that its newly developed position on patentable subject matter will invalidate many and perhaps most software patents, including pioneering patent claims to such innovators as Google, Inc. In a series of cases including In re Nuijten, In re Comiskey and In re Bilski, the Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in § 101 of the Patent Act. In the most recent of these three—the currently pending en banc Bilski appeal—the Office takes the position...

Apple accuses brothers Robert, left, and Rudy Pedraza of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract. A Doral company founded by two South Florida brothers has been sued by technology giant Apple, which is attacking the Mac clones the brothers started selling in April. Attorneys for Apple are accusing Psystar Corp., owned by Rudy and Robert Pedraza, of copyright and trademark infringement and breach of contract for building and selling ''cloned'' computers that run on Apple's Leopard operating system. In addition to monetary damages, Apple wants a court to force the Pedraza brothers to stop selling their clones...

In the end, this new copyright law is going to suffer the same fate that many other well intentioned laws have suffered in China; most people will probably never even hear about it. I was just in an Internet cafe yesterday. To my right someone was giggling as they watched Meet the Fockers and to my left someone else was spellbound by an old episode of Prison Break. What did I think? I guess I was happy that they could find some enjoyment in the midst of the harsh reality that probably confronts them every day in this developing country.

Jul 21st, 2008 The RNC agrees to remove the Republican Elephant from CafePress’ Endangered Species List - Grand Old Party Ensues! Some of you may have seen some of the media coverage (maybe here, here, or here) regarding the Republican National Committee’s recent complaints about our shopkeepers’ use of the terms “GOP,” “Grand Old Party,” “Republican National Committee,” “RNC,” and various elephant designs. To sum it up: back in February, the RNC demanded that CafePress “cease and desist from allowing vendors to utilize the federally registered trademarks of the RNC” and threatened legal action. While we’re open to working...

Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage “MERCHANT and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. “Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa (see article). But stealing other people’s R&D,...

While Apple is the famously fruity iPod and Mac company, a small upstart named Psystar has sought to steal a small amount of Apple’s thunder by producing clones of the famous Apple computers. Psystar took advantage of Apple’s recent conversion of all of its personal computers to use Intel microprocessors, the same microprocessors at the heart of ordinary PC’s, to make clones that (mostly) run Apple’s OS X software operating system. Of course, Psystar is not doing this out of benevolence, as its website proclaims: "Why spend $1999 to get the least expensive Apple computer with a decent video card...

But Mac clone maker might counter with anti-competitive argumentApple Inc.'s demand that a Mac clone maker recall computers because the company installed Mac OS X on the machines may be an extreme measure, but it's hardly unprecedented, an intellectual property attorney said today. "It would be extreme because it would likely put Psystar out of business, but it's not a remedy that's coming out of the blue. It's not completely without precedent," said Carole Handler, a partner in the intellectual property (IP) department of Wildman, Harrold, Allen & Dixon. Handler is best known for her work on a case involving...

After a frustrating few months of searching for a solution to the audio problems he encountered while ripping on-screen video with his Dell laptop, a ripten editor discovered that others were experiencing the same issue—and that the problem was not confined to Dell laptops. Apparently, the lack of a sound card Stereo Mix recording option is to blame—and numerous forum threads have suggested that the RIAA has put pressure on laptop manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and Pac Bell to remove it.After posting this information on ripten, a Dell representative chimed in to say that the lack of a sound card...

...the pharmaceutical industry has become a lightning rod for critics. For example, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, blasted the drug industry in a much-publicized 2004 book, accusing it of profiteering and having become "a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit." She maintained the pharmaceutical industry's reputation for innovation is a myth, that it "feeds off the NIH" and that new drugs "nearly always stem from publicly supported research." ...Mr. Zycher and his colleagues concluded that scientific contributions of the private sector were essential for the discovery and/or development of virtually all the...

THE HAGUE, 28/06/08 - Any Dutch person who downloads protected songs, films or software via the Internet is breaking the law, Het Financieele Dagbad reported Friday. The newspaper based this on a verdict of the district court in The Hague. "This is the first time a Dutch judge has characterised the unauthorised downloading of copyright-protected material for private use as illegal. This week's verdict is diametrically opposed to the position of the government. It has always tolerated downloading for private use," according to the newspaper. In the Netherlands, producers of blank media carriers such as empty DVDs remit a levy...

U.S. District Judge F. Bradford Stillman this morning ruled that the College must turn over the names of 20 students suspected of downloading music illegally to the Recording Industry Association of America. The RIAA plans to sue the students for copyright infringement after they allegedly downloaded music on peer-to-peer music sharing programs such as Limewire. 7 students have already settled independently, paying between $3,000 and $5,000 each. The suit had previously been denied by U.S. District Judge Walter D. Kelley Jr. Kelley recently retired, and the RIAA asked Stillman to overturn his ruling. According to RIAA lawyer Katheryn Coggon, the...

Ruling Affirms Right to Resell Promo CDs San Francisco - A federal judge has shot down bogus copyright infringement allegations from Universal Music Group (UMG), affirming an eBay seller's right to resell promotional CDs that he buys from secondhand stores.Troy Augusto, represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and law firm Keker & Van Nest, was sued by UMG last year in the United States District Court for the Central District of California for 26 auction listings involving promo CDs. At issue was whether the "promotional use only, not for sale" labels on those CDs could trump Augusto's right to...

June 10, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Drug Resistance Is DeadlyPharmaceutical knock-offs may threaten our ability to treat malaria. By Roger Bate Thai government officials, led by commerce permanent secretary Siriphol Yodmuangcharoen, will meet with their Washington counterparts on June 10, hoping to persuade the U.S. Trade Representative to remove Thailand from its “Priority Watch List.” Thailand is one of nine countries listed, earning its place because of intellectual property-rights violations by the previous Bangkok government — which broke patents on AIDS and heart drugs, undermining its trade relationship with the U.S., and harming foreign investment. While the U.S. will continue...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday limited the ability of companies to collect multiple royalties on their patents, the latest step by the justices to scale back the power of patent-holders. The unanimous decision, which was helpful to customers of Intel Corp., involved a longtime Supreme Court doctrine that in recent years had been eroded by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., which handles patent cases nationally. Justice Clarence Thomas reined in the appeals court, saying that "for over 150 years the Supreme Court has applied the doctrine of patent exhaustion" and...

Sean "Diddy" Combs is a multi-millionaire mogul who leads a life most can only dream of. So why is he pissed off at a rinky-dink website that sells cufflinks? We're told Diddy unleashed his big-time lawyers on a website called Cuff-Daddy.com, a small, family-owned cufflink seller. They fired off a letter telling them that the business' name was way too similar to his. Wait -- didn't he change his name to Diddy years ago? We hear the business gets its name from the owner of the company -- he's just a proud dad who sells cufflinks. The owner of the...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declared open season for fantasy-sports companies. The high court effectively ended a three-year legal battle when it rejected an appeal from Major League Baseball and its Players Association that, if successful, could have given professional sports leagues the ability to control the lucrative fantasy-sports business. Instead, the court's decision solidifies the rights of fantasy-sports companies to run their businesses without having to buy licenses from the major sports leagues or their players' unions anymore. The Supreme Court ruled that fantasy-sports companies aren't required to pay for licenses from leagues or players' unions. Fantasy sports...

Can Mormon women wear pants when visiting a temple? Can men wear cummerbunds during a marriage ceremony? Are vasectomies an appropriate birth control option? The answers to these (no, no, and not really) and similar questions about Mormon practice and leadership might not seem to be especially secret, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't pleased about secret church documents hitting the Internet. In this case, the cause of the displeasure is the confidential Church Handbook of Instructions, published by Wikileaks on April 16. The church is currently trying to get the information pulled down using copyright...