Justia Internet Law Opinion Summaries

Petitioners challenge the Commission's 2015 Open Internet Order, which reclassified broadband service as a telecommunications service, subject to common carrier regulation under Title II of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. 201. The Commission determined that broadband service satisfies the statutory definition of a telecommunications service: “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public.” In accordance with Brand X, the Commission's conclusions about consumer perception find extensive support in the record and together justify the Commission’s decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service. See National Cable & Telecommunications Ass’n v. Brand X Internet Services. The court rejected petitioners' numerous challenges to the Commission's decision to reclassify broadband, finding that none have merit. The court concluded that the Commission adequately explained why it reclassified broadband from an information service to a telecommunications service and its decision was not arbitrary and capricious. US Telecom never questions the Commission’s application of the statute’s test for common carriage, and US Telecom cites no case, nor is the court aware of one, holding that when the Commission invokes the statutory test for common carriage, it must also apply the NARUC test. See National Ass’n of Regulatory Utility Commissioners v. FCC. Where the Commission concluded that it could regulate interconnection arrangements under Title II as a component of broadband service, the court rejected US Telecom's two challenges to the Commission's decision. The court rejected mobile petitioners’ arguments and find that the Commission’s reclassification of mobile broadband as a commercial mobile service is reasonable and supported by the record. In the Order, the Commission decided to forbear from numerous provisions of the Communications Act. The court rejected Full Service Network's procedural and substantive challenges to the Commission’s forbearance decision. The Commission promulgated five rules in the Order: rules banning (i) blocking, (ii) throttling, and (iii) paid prioritization; (iv) a General Conduct Rule; and (v) an enhanced transparency rule. The court rejected Alamo's challenge to the anti-paid-prioritization rule as beyond the Commission’s authority and rejected US Telecom's challenge to the General Conduct Rule as unconstitutionally vague. Having upheld the FCC’s reclassification of broadband service as common carriage, the court concluded that the First Amendment poses no bar to the rules and the court rejected Alamo and Berninger's challenges. Accordingly, the court denied the petitions for review. View "United States Telecom Assoc. v. FCC" on Justia Law

Attorney Hassell obtained a judgment holding Bird liable for defamation and requiring her to remove defamatory reviews she posted about Hassell on Yelp.com. The judgment contained an order requiring Yelp to remove Bird’s defamatory reviews from its site. Yelp, who was not a party in the defamation action, moved to vacate the judgment. The court of appeal affirmed denial of that motion, but remanded. The court concluded that Yelp is not “aggrieved” by the defamation judgment against Bird, but is “aggrieved” by the removal order; Yelp’s motion to vacate was not cognizable under Code of Civil Procedure section 6632; Yelp has standing to challenge the validity of the removal order as an “aggrieved party,” having brought a nonstatutory motion to vacate; Yelp’s due process rights were not violated by its lack of prior notice and a hearing on the removal order request; the removal order does not violate Yelp’s First Amendment rights to the extent that it requires Yelp to remove Bird’s defamatory reviews; to the extent it purports to cover statements other than Bird’s defamatory reviews, the removal order is an overbroad unconstitutional prior restraint on speech; and Yelp’s immunity from suit under the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. 230, does not extend to the removal order. View "Hassell v. Bird" on Justia Law

Indacon’s patent is directed to a system and method for searching, indexing, perusing, and manipulating files in a database, particularly through the insertion of automatically generated hyperlinks. Following the district court’s claim construction order, Indacon stipulated to noninfringement. The court entered final judgment in favor of Facebook. The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding the constructions of the claim terms “alias,” “custom link,” “custom linking relationship,” and “link term.” View "Indacon, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc." on Justia Law

MSV’s “Terry patents” are a line of continuations beginning with the 895 patent; they concern techniques for providing access to a local area network (LAN) from a relatively distant computer. When two computers on the LAN transmit onto the medium concurrently, they create interference known as a “collision,” and the concurrent communications may be lost. It is not practical to use LAN protocols with collision detection over long distances, such as those spanned by telephone lines. The Terry patents describe an approach by which a computer may communicate with a LAN over the long distances covered by telephone lines, using a collision avoidance scheme rather than a collision detection scheme. In 2013, IWS sued several dozen hotels and coffee shops doing business in the Eastern District of Texas, alleging infringement by providing WiFi Internet access to customers using off-the-shelf WiFi equipment sold by Ruckus and Cisco. The district court entered final judgment of non-infringement, holding the asserted patent claims are limited to wired rather than wireless communications. The Federal Circuit affirmed, finding that no intrinsic or extrinsic evidence suggesting that “communications path” encompasses wireless communications. View "Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions, LLC" on Justia Law

California’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003 (OPPA), under the unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code 17200 et. seq.), addresses the obligations of an operator of a commercial Web site or online service regarding the posting of a privacy policy on the Internet. The state sought damages and injunctive relief under OPPA, alleging that Delta’s Fly Delta mobile application violated the privacy policy requirements. The trial court dismissed, finding the suit expressly preempted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 (49 U.S.C. 41713 (b)(1)). The court of appeal affirmed. To compel Delta to comply with the OPPA would effectively interfere with the airline’s “selection and design” of its mobile application, a marketing mechanism “appropriate to the furnishing of air transportation service,” for which state enforcement has been held to be expressly preempted. View "Harris v. Delta Air Lines" on Justia Law

John Fanning founded Jerk LLC (Jerk) and Jerk.com in 2009. From 2009 to 2014, Jerk operated Jerk.com. In 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (Commission) filed an administrative complaint charging Jerk and Fanning with engaging in deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce in violation of the Federal Trade Commission Act. The Commission entered a summary decision finding Fanning personally liable for misrepresentations contained on Jerk.com. Fanning petitioned for review. The First Circuit (1) affirmed the Commission’s finding of liability and the recordkeeping provisions and order acknowledgement requirement of the Commission’s remedial order; but (2) vacated Fanning’s compliance monitoring provisions, holding that these provisions were overbroad and not reasonably related to Fanning’s violation. View "Fanning v. Fed. Trade Comm'n" on Justia Law

Mankes’s patent claims methods for managing a reservation system that divides inventory between a local server and a remote Internet server. Mankes sued Vivid Seats and Fandango, alleging infringement by their Internet-based reservation systems, in conjunction with the operation of local systems by movie theaters and other entertainment venues. No one person performs all of the steps of the claims, so Mankes’s case depended on establishing “divided infringement.” At the time, the law relating to divided infringement was under reconsideration. In 2014, the Supreme Court held that divided-infringement liability requires some person to be liable for direct infringement under 35 U.S.C. 271(a). In 2015, the district court concluded that Mankes’s allegations were insufficient to establish direct infringement and granted defendants judgments on the pleadings. Vivid Seats sought attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. 285. The court denied the request, finding the case not exceptional. The Federal Circuit vacated in light of developments since the Court’s Akamai decision, broadening the circumstances in which others’ acts may be attributed to an accused infringer to support direct-infringement liability for divided infringement. Attribution is proper in a joint-enterprise setting. The district court’s rulings were based on the earlier, narrower standard. Mankes made reasonable arguments for adjustment of legal standards that the Federal Circuit had already granted en banc review to consider; his pursuit of the case was not unreasonable. View "Mankes v. Vivid Seats Ltd." on Justia Law

Telesocial, a San Francisco start-up, entered into a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) regarding a possible agreement to acquire Telesocial's software application named "Call Friends." This dispute stems from Telesocial's allegations that Orange violated federal and state laws by stealing Telesocial's technology to create its own product called "Party Call." Orange and its employees seek a writ of mandamus under 28 U.S.C. 1651 directing the district court to vacate its order denying Orange’s motion to dismiss, and direct an entry of judgment dismissing Telesocial’s First Amended Complaint (FAC). The court applied the Bauman v. United States factors and concluded that the district court did not commit clear legal error in determining that the NDA did not cover the claims at issue; Orange has the ability on direct appeal to attain the relief it desires; Orange will not be prejudiced in a way that is not correctable on appeal; and the district court’s decision does not raise a novel issue that affects the international business community. Accordingly, the court denied Orange’s petition for writ of mandamus. View "Orange, S.A. v. USDC for the Northern Dist. of CA, San Francisco" on Justia Law

Mississippi's Attorney General, James M. Hood III, appealed the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction prohibiting Hood from enforcing an administrative subpoena or bringing any civil or criminal action against Google "for making accessible third-party content to internet users." The court concluded that the district court erred in granting injunctive relief because neither the issuance of the non-self-executing administrative subpoena nor the possibility of some future enforcement action created an imminent threat of irreparable injury ripe for adjudication. The court noted that it expressed no opinion on the reasonableness of the subpoena or on whether the conduct discussed in the parties’ briefs could be held actionable consistent with federal law. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Google, Inc. v. Hood" on Justia Law

GeoTag’s patent claims systems and methods of searching online information within a geographically and topically organized database. It describes a preferred embodiment that organizes websites and files within a directory-like structure of folders categorized by geography and topic. In that embodiment, an Internet user may navigate to a folder labeled for a particular geographic area and then conduct a topical search within that area, such as for “information about specific goods and services in the geographic location.” Google sought a declaratory judgment that the patent was invalid and not infringed by Google’s AdWords platform. The court held that AdWords does not practice the “dynamically replicated” limitation of the patent because it does not search a narrow geographic area and automatically add results from a broader area; AdWords conducts a broad search for “all responsive ads” and then “consecutively filters” results. Before the court entered summary judgment, GeoTag unsuccessfully moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that the complaint did not establish a substantial controversy “of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant" declaratory judgment. The Federal Circuit upheld the claim construction and held that the court retained subject matter jurisdiction over GeoTag’s infringement counterclaims under 28 U.S.C. 1338(a), regardless of any flaw in Google’s complaint. View "Microsoft Corp. v. GeoTag, Inc." on Justia Law