Lone Star IP

In MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech, Inc., 549 U.S. 118, 127 S. Ct. 764 (2007), the Supreme Court held that a licensee had standing to challenge the validity of the licensed patent, despite the licensee’s failure to breach the agreement by refusing to pay royalties.  In the wake of this opinion, there was much debate about [...]

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was enacted by Congress in 1998 in part to prevent the circumvention of technological measures designed to prevent either access to or copying of a copyrighted work. With certain exceptions, the DMCA made it a crime to circumvent such measures and outlawed the manufacture, sale, or distribution of devices used to illegally copy software.

Examples of such anti-piracy prevention measures include technology that prevents an unauthorized copy of a DVD from being played and software that limits the number of times a computer program can be installed. Because the law is relatively new and because technology is constantly changing, the scope and application of the DMCA remains an evolving frontier.

Judge Florence-Marie Cooper of the Central District of California recently dismissed Jim Brown’s claim of false endorsement against Electronic Arts.  The decision continues the courts’ trend of finding that the First Amendment provides a complete defense to a claim of unfair competition when source identifiers are used within video games.
Jim Brown is a retired professional [...]

 Note: This article is from a guest contributor, Celina Diaz, an associate at Carstens & Cahoon. Ms. Diaz is a native Texan, born in Corpus Christi after her parents moved from Peru. Ms. Diaz majored in both Chemistry and Spanish Civilizations at the University of Texas at Austin, while taking pre-medical courses. She studied in [...]