Justia Internet Law Opinion Summaries

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

Plaintiffs filed a class action alleging that defendants, who run internet advertising businesses, placed tracking cookies on the plaintiffs’ web browsers in contravention of their browsers’ cookie blockers and defendant Google’s own public statements. Essentially they claimed that the defendants acquired the plaintiffs’ internet history information when, in the course of requesting webpage advertising content at the direction of the visited website, the plaintiffs’ browsers sent that information directly to the defendants’ servers. They cited the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. 2510; the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C 2701; the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. 1030; and, against Google, violation of the privacy right conferred by the California Constitution, intrusion upon seclusion, the state Unfair Competition Law, the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, and the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act. The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed as to the federal claims, stating that fraud or deceit does not amount to wiretapping; the alleged conduct implicated no protected “facility” under the Stored Communications Act; and the plaintiffs alleged no damages under the Fraud Act. The court vacated dismissal of the state law claims against Google. View "In Re: Google Inc Cookie Placement Consumer Privacy Litig." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, authors of published books under copyright, filed suit against Google for copyright infringement. Google, acting without permission of rights holders, has made digital copies of tens of millions of books, including plaintiffs', through its Library Project and its Google books project. The district court concluded that Google's actions constituted fair use under 17 U.S.C. 107. On appeal, plaintiffs challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Google. The court concluded that: (1) Google’s unauthorized digitizing of copyright-protected works, creation of a search functionality, and display of snippets from those works are non-infringing fair uses. The purpose of the copying is highly transformative, the public display of text is limited, and the revelations do not provide a significant market substitute for the protected aspects of the originals. Google’s commercial nature and profit motivation do not justify denial of fair use. (2) Google’s provision of digitized copies to the libraries that supplied the books, on the understanding that the libraries will use the copies in a manner consistent with the copyright law, also does not constitute infringement. Nor, on this record, is Google a contributory infringer. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Authors Guild v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

Google's AdWords program is an auction-based program through which advertisers would bid for Google to place their advertisements on websites. Pulaski and others filed a putative class action alleging that Google misled them as to the types of websites on which their advertisements could appear. On appeal, Pulaski challenged the district court's denial of class certification, holding that on the claim for restitution, common questions did not predominate over questions affecting individual class members. The court held that a court need not make individual determinations regarding entitlement to restitution. Instead, restitution is available on a class wide basis once the class representative makes the threshold showing of liability. Therefore, the court concluded that the district court erred in holding that such individual questions would predominate. In Yokoyama v. Midland National Life Insurance Co., the court held that damage calculations alone cannot defeat certification. The court concluded that Yokoyama remains the law of the court and the district court erred in not following the rule in Yokoyama. Finally, the court concluded that the proposed method for calculating restitution was not “arbitrary” under Comcast Corp. v. Behrend. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Pulaski & Middleman, LLC v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law