Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

Perfect 10 moved for a preliminary injunction against Google, arguing that it was entitled to an injunction because Google's web and image search and related caching feature, its Blogger service, and its practice of forwarding Perfect 10's takedown notices to chillingeffects.org constituted copyright infringement. Perfect 10 also argued that it was entitled to an injunction based upon Google's alleged violation of the rights of publicity assigned to Perfect 10 by some of its models. At issue was whether the district court erred in denying Perfect 10's request for preliminary injunctive relief. The court held that Perfect 10 had not shown a sufficient causal connection between irreparable harm to Perfect 10's business and Google's operation of its search engine. Therefore, the court held that because Perfect 10 had failed to satisfy this necessary requirement for obtaining preliminary injunctive relief, the district court's ruling was not an abuse of discretion. View "Perfect 10, Inc. v. Google, Inc." on Justia Law

The United States appealed from the district court's dismissal of several counts of an indictment charging defendant with, inter alia, numerous violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act ("CFAA"), 18 U.S.C. 1030, when defendant recruited employees of his former employer to obtain trade secrets and other proprietary information by using their user accounts to access the employer's computer system. At issue was whether the employees had exceeded their authorized access by accessing information that they were entitled to access only under limited circumstances. The court reversed the district court's decision and held that an employee, like the employees at issue in this instance, exceeded authorized access under section 1030 when he or she violated the employer's computer access restrictions, including use restrictions.