Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

The district court held Early Education in contempt and awarded Rainbow School $60,000, plus attorney's fees and costs, after Early Education violated the terms of a consent judgment and permanent injunction. The Fourth Circuit affirmed and held that the district court did not clearly err in finding multiple violations of the injunction; Early Education's violations harmed the Rainbow School; and the district court did not abuse its discretion by awarding damages and attorney's fees and costs. The court dismissed Early Education's appeal from the order requiring it to undergo an audit based on lack of appellate jurisdiction. The court held that the question of whether Early Education should initially pay for an audit was neither inextricably linked nor a necessary precursor to the issues presented in the appeal from the district court's prior order, which made a determination of contempt and had nothing to do with paying for an audit. View "Rainbow School, Inc. v. Rainbow Early Education Holding LLC" on Justia Law

BMG filed suit against Cox, alleging copyright infringement, seeking to hold Cox contributorily liable for infringement of BMG's copyrights by subscribers to Cox's Internet service. On appeal, Cox argued that the district court erred in denying it the safe harbor defense and incorrectly instructed the jury. The Fifth Circuit held that Cox was not entitled to the safe harbor defense under section 512(a) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. 512(a), because it failed to implement its policy in any consistent or meaningful way. The court held that the district court did erred in charging the jury as to the intent necessary to prove contributory infringement. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "BMG Rights Management v. Cox Communications" on Justia Law

This case arose out of competition in the market for software used to manage and analyze large and complex datasets. SAS filed suit against WPL, alleging that WPL breached a license agreement for SAS software and violated copyrights on that software. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment finding WPL liable for beach of the license agreement, holding that the contractual terms at issue were unambiguous and that SAS has shown that WPL violated those terms. The court vacated the portion of the district court's ruling on the copyright claim and remanded with instructions to dismiss it as moot. View "SAS Institute, Inc. v. World Programming Ltd." on Justia Law