Justia Internet Law Opinion Summaries

Lewis sued the video-sharing service, YouTube, for breach of contract it deleted her "channel." YouTube filed a filed a request for judicial notice of the YouTube Community Guidelines and several e-mails between Lewis and YouTube.The trial court granted the request for judicial notice and entered a judgment of dismissal. The court of appeal affirmed, stating that no provision in the Terms of Service could serve as the basis for the relief that Lewis sought. The court noted that YouTube has restored service for Lewis. View "Lewis v. YouTube" on Justia Law

Musacchio resigned as president of ETS in 2004, but with help from the former head of ETS’s information-technology department, he accessed ETS’s computer system without authorization through early 2006. In 2010, Musacchio was indicted under 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C), which makes it a crime if a person “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access” and thereby “obtains . . . information from any protected computer.” A 2012 superseding indictment changed the access date to “[o]n or about” November 23–25, 2005. Musacchio never raised the 5-year statute of limitations. The government did not object to jury instructions referring to: “intentionally access a computer without authorization and exceed authorized access” although the conjunction “and” added an additional element. The jury found Musacchio guilty. In affirming his conviction, the Fifth Circuit assessed Musacchio’s sufficiency challenge against the charged elements of the conspiracy count rather than against the heightened jury instruction, and concluded that he had waived his statute-of-limitations defense. The Supreme Court affirmed. A sufficiency challenge should be assessed against the elements of the charged crime, not against the elements set forth in an erroneous jury instruction. Sufficiency review essentially addresses whether the case was strong enough to reach the jury. Musacchio did not dispute that he was properly charged with conspiracy to obtain unauthorized access or that the evidence was sufficient to convict him of the charged crime. A defendant cannot successfully raise section 3282(a)’s statute-of-limitations bar for the first time on appeal. The history of section 3282(a)’s limitations bar confirms that the provision does not impose a jurisdictional limit. View "Musacchio v. United States" on Justia Law

Lumen’s 073 patent is directed to facilitating multilateral decision-making by matching parties, using preference data from two classes of parties. FTB operates a search website with a comparison feature, “AssistMe,” that provides personalized product and service recommendations by asking the user questions about attributes of the desired product or service. Lumen alleged infringement. FTB repeatedly informed Lumen that FTB’s accused feature did not involve bilateral or multilateral preference matching. Before receiving any discovery, Lumen served preliminary infringement contentions, including a chart identifying the allegedly infringing features of AssistMe. The district court granted FTB judgment on the pleadings, holding that the patent’s claims are directed to an abstract idea and invalid for failure to claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101. The court found claim construction unnecessary and awarded attorney fees. Finding the case exceptional under 35 U.S.C. 285, the court stated “basic” pre-suit investigation would have shown that AssistMe only used one party's preference data. The court explained factors that supported enhancing the lodestar amount, including “the need to deter the plaintiff’s predatory strategy, the plaintiff’s desire to extract a nuisance settlement, the plaintiff’s threats to make the litigation expensive, and the frivolous nature of the plaintiff’s claims.” The Federal Circuit affirmed the "exceptional" finding, but remanded for proper explanation of the calculation of fees. View "Lumen View Tech., LLC v. Findthebest.Com, Inc" on Justia Law

Fidlar develops software to manage public land records and licenses its software to the counties. Counties contract with users who want access to the records. In 2010, LPS contracted with 82 of Fidlar’s county customers to gain access to their land records. LPS designed a “web-harvester,” and downloaded county records en masse; it sent the records to India, where select records were entered, into LPS’s database. LPS’s web-harvester did not disrupt Fidlar’s services to other users or alter any content in the middle tier or county databases. The counties allegedly lost print fees as a result of the bulk download. Fidlar concluded that LPS was using a web-harvester instead of its software to obtain records and sued, alleging violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Illinois Computer Crime Prevention Law, and trespass to chattels. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for LPS, holding that Fidlar failed to show that LPS acted with intent to defraud or caused damage under the CFAA. The court rejected Fidlar’s argument that LPS knew or had reason to know that it might cause loss as required by the CCPL. View "Fidlar Techs v. LPS Real Estate Data Solutions, Inc." on Justia Law

MG’s patents relate to “financial transactions including a method for a borrower to evaluate and/or obtain financing.” MG sued for infringement. Defendants claimed that the patents failed to claim patent-eligible subject matter. The judge’s Standing Patent Rules (SPRs), developed “based largely on information obtained from over 100 patent practitioners and professors, a review of all the other local patent rules, and a review of related literature,” required that a party opposing an infringement claim serve invalidity contentions after a scheduling conference. Defendants served invalidity contentions, including the statement: “Defendants do not present any grounds of invalidity based on 35 U.S.C. 101 . . . at this time. The final claim construction may require such an assertion of invalidity.” The SPRs required final infringement contentions and expert reports following the issuance of an order construing claim terms. After the claim construction order, final invalidity contentions were served, citing 35 U.S.C. 101. The court agreed that an intervening Supreme Court decision constituted good cause for reviving the invalidity claim and later concluded that all of the claims were directed to the abstract idea of “anonymous loan shopping” and included no “inventive concept.” The Federal Circuit affirmed, upholding denial of MG’s motion to strike the section 101 defense and the finding that the asserted claims are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter. View "Mortgage Grader, Inc. v. First Choice Loan Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

Two mothers and their sons alleged that Internet gambling websites owe them the money that the men lost in gambling. An Illinois statute imposes criminal penalties on anyone who “knowingly establishes, maintains, or operates an Internet site that permits a person to play a game of chance or skill for money or other thing of value by means of the Internet or to make a wager upon the result of any [such] game,” 720 ILCS 5/28-1(a)(12) and “any person who knowingly permits any premises or property owned or occupied by him or under his control to be used as a gambling place.” It provides that “any person who by gambling shall lose to any other person, any sum of money or thing of value, amounting to the sum of $50 or more ... may sue for and recover ... in a civil action against the winner thereof.” The Seventh Circuit affirmed dismissal. The sons, who used the websites, failed to sue within six months of their losses. The government shut down the sites in 2011. The mothers, who never gambled on the sites, have timely claims, but the defendants are not the winners of any game that their sons played, but are the sites that hosted the gambling. View "Fahrner v. Tiltware, LLC" on Justia Law

Wi-LAN’s 802 patent concerns a wireless data communication technique called “MultiCode Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum” (MC-DSSS). WiLAN asserts that the patented technique is embodied in several modern wireless communications standards. In 2011, Wi-LAN sued Apple and other technology companies for infringing two claims of the 802 patent by manufacturing and selling products complying with various wide-area communication standards. A jury found that Apple did not infringe and that the claims are invalid. The district court denied Wi-LAN’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial with respect to infringement, but it granted Wi-LAN’s motion for JMOL of no invalidity. The Federal Circuit affirmed the jury’s verdict of non-infringement as supported by substantial evidence, but reversed the finding of no invalidity. The JMOL determination of no invalidity was based on a post-verdict reconstruction of the claims that went far beyond clarifying a meaning inherent in the construction or making plain what should have been obvious to the jury. The post-verdict reconstruction altered the scope of the original construction and undermined Apple’s invalidity case post-verdict. View "Wi-LAN, Inc. v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the district court's grant of an injunction requiring defendant to transfer to defendant four domain names he had registered in his own name and grant of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on defendant's counterclaims. The court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain defendant's appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1291, because there are still pending claims brought against defendant under sections 43(a) and (c) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(a) and (c), and state law. The court concluded, however, that it has jurisdiction to review the district court's injunction under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). The court held that the re-registration of bydesignfurniture.com constituted a registration under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. 1125, and that plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits of its ACPA claim. Accordingly, the court concluded that the issuance of the preliminary injunction did not constitute an abuse of discretion and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "JYSK Bed'N Linen v. Dutta-Roy" on Justia Law

SightSound’s patents disclose methods for sale and distribution of digital audio and video signals, requiring: connection, by telecommunications lines, between a party’s memory and a second party’s memory; selling digital signals to the second party for a fee through telecommunications lines; transmitting the signal from the first memory to the second memory by telecommunications lines; and storing the signal in the second memory. Apple sought covered business method (CBM) review under the America Invents Act, 125 Stat. 284, arguing that claims were invalid as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. 102. The Patent Board determined that the patents are CBM patents because they recite an activity that is “financial in nature,” and do not include novel, non-obvious technological features, then determined that there was a reasonable likelihood that the claims were anticipated or obvious by disclosures relating to a 1980s CompuSonics computer system. The petitions did not specifically allege obviousness over CompuSonics. The Board granted SightSound additional time and authorized sur-replies and new declaration testimony on the issue of obviousness, then rejected SightSound’s contention that the term “second memory” is limited to non-removable media and held seven claims invalid as obvious. The Federal Circuit found that it lacked jurisdiction to review the decision to consider issues not explicitly raised in the petitions, but affirmed that the patents are CBM patents and the final decision with respect to claim construction and obviousness. View "Sightsound Techs., LLC v. Apple Inc." on Justia Law

The Tariff Act of 1930 gives the International Trade Commission authority to remedy only those unfair acts that involve the importation of “articles” as described in 19 U.S.C. 1337(a). The Commission instituted an investigation based on a complaint filed by Align, concerning violation of 19 U.S.C. 1337 by reason of infringement of various claims of seven different patents concerning orthodontic devices. The accused “articles” were the transmission of the “digital models, digital data and treatment plans, expressed as digital data sets, which are virtual three-dimensional models of the desired positions of the patients’ teeth at various stages of orthodontic treatment” from Pakistan to the United States. The Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the Commission lacked jurisdiction. The Commission’s decision to expand the scope of its jurisdiction to include electronic transmissions of digital data runs counter to the “unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” View "ClearCorrect Operating, LLC v. Int'l Trade Comm'n" on Justia Law