U.S. Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Upholds Human Authorship Requirement in AI-Generated Works
In an important (but perhaps not surprising) decision, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the U.S. Copyright Office’s denial of copyright registration for a work generated solely by AI. The court asked the question: “Can a non-human machine be an author under the Copyright Act of 1976?” Finding that registration would not satisfy the requirement that all registered works must be created by a human being in the first instance, the court found that the Copyright Office’s denial of copyright registration was proper.
Tempted by the Tort of Another: California’s Judicial Exception to the American Rule
One “exception” to the American rule is the “tort of another” doctrine. Under this doctrine, “[a] person who through the tort of another has been required to act in the protection of his interests by bringing or defending an action against a third person is entitled to recover compensation for the reasonably necessary loss of time, attorney’s fees, and other expenditures thereby suffered or incurred.” Prentice v. North Am. Title Guaranty Corp., Alameda Division, 59 Cal.2d 618, 620 (1963).
When Is a Copyright “Registered”—at the Time of Application, or When the Copyright Office Issues the Certificate of Registration?
What happens if the copyright owner applies for copyright registration before the statute of limitations has run but the Copyright Office does not issue a certificate of registration until after the statute of limitations has run? That issue is scheduled to be argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 8, 2019.
The Importance of Describing Trade Secrets with Sufficient Particularity
Discerning the line between providing too much information in a trade secrets identification (and therefore potentially publicly revealing some of the proprietary information) and disclosing too little information (thereby risking dismissal or the need to amend a trade secrets disclosure) is more art than science
Northern District of California Court Finds State-Law Trade Secrets Action Is Preempted by Federal Patent Law on Issue of Inventorship
A plaintiff’s identification of trade secrets is one of the most important aspects of trade secrets litigation, as this case illustrates.
A Discovery Ruling in the Northern District of California Raises a Novel Issue as to Liability for “Cross-Border” Circumventions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
In the case of the DVR user, there can be no doubt that the DVR user alone decided to copy the copyrighted work. In the case of the Ubiquiti employee, it was almost certainly not an individual employee who made the decision to use Synopsys’ software, and he or she may have been wholly unaware that it was being used (not to mention that it was being used without authorization from Synopsis).