Monthly Archives: December, 2011
December 9, 2011
Copyright (and Patent) Misuse – It’s Narrower Than You Think
The copyright misuse doctrine does not prohibit a copyright owner from requiring that licensees use the copyrighted work only on it own products. It only prohibits the copyright owner from imposing conditions that prohibit the licensee from making competing products. That is one of the rulings in the recent Ninth Circuit case of Apple v. Pystar. Other discussions of interest in that case concern the validity of software developers issuing licenses rather than engaging in sales to avoid application of the first sale doctrine, and application of injunction standards in the absence of a presumption of irreparable harm. (See my post of July 13, 2011 for a discussion of the elimination of the presumption of irreparable injury in copyright cases.)
The doctrine of copyright misuse derives from the similar doctrine of patent misuse. Basically, it prohibits a copyright owner from using his copyright to inhibit competition in either products that compete with the copyrighted work or tied products. So, for example, in the patent context, once cannot require a licensee of a salt shaker patent to buy salt only from the licensor. One might think, then, that it could be copyright misuse to require that a user of copyrighted software use it only on the licensor’s hardware.
Not so, says the Ninth Circuit. In the Ninth Circuit, copyright misuse occurs only when the copyright owner seeks to prevent a licensee from using a competing product. In the Apple case, the court held that although Apple prohibited use of its software on non-Apple hardware, it did not commit copyright misuse because it did prevent the licensee from developing or using competing software or hardware.
With respect to the license/sale distinction, the court endorsed the principle that so long as the copyright owner restricts the uses that can be made of his product, he can call it a license and avoid the first sale doctrine (the principle that once there has been an authorized sale, the buyer can resell or use the product without restriction).
Notwithstanding the absence of a presumption of irreparable harm, the court found irreparable harm sufficient to impose an injunction, based on the facts that liability had been determined against the defendant, there was a history of infringement, and a significant (albeit unexplained in the court’s opinion) threat of future infringement remains. Hopefully that means that the demolition of the presumption of irreparable harm will not, as a practical matter, curtail the issuance of injunctions in many infringement cases, and infringers will not be able to successfully adopt the infringe now, pay later model.
Monthly Archives: December, 2011
December 5, 2011
Real World Effects of the Absence of a Presumption of Irreparable Harm
If you want to see the effect of recent cases abolishing the presumption of irreparable harm following automatically from a likelihood of success, consider the recent decision in the Apple v. Samsung case. Apple sued Samsung for infringements of three design patents and one method patent, each of which pertained to the IPad or IPhone. Apple sought a preliminary injunction prohibiting sale of three Samsung phones and one tablet.
The court denied Apple a preliminary injunction with respect to all four Samsung products, despite finding that Apple had demonstrated a likelihood of success with respect to three of its patents, in whole or in part because Apple was unable to demonstrate irreparable harm.
If irreparable harm had been presumed, perhaps Apple would have gotten its injunction against one or more of the Samsung products.
Monthly Archives: December, 2011
December 4, 2011
No Presumption of Irreparable Harm in False Advertising Cases Either
Irreparable injury cannot be presumed in Lanham Act false advertising cases. That was the ruling in Leatherman Tool v. Coast Cutlery, a case decided in October in the District of Oregon. In that case the court found that Leatherman made a preliminary showing that its competitor, Coast Cutlery, deliberately included in advertising literally false statements concerning the sharpness of its knife blades. The court did not issue a preliminary injunction, however, because it found Leatherman’s affidavits avowing concern that sales would be diverted were speculative, and insufficient to prove that Leatherman would be irreparably harmed by its competitor’s literally false advertising.
On the heels of cases within the past five years expressly ruling a presumption of irreparable harm does not apply in patent and copyright cases, a recent decision from the First Circuit in a trademark case and a one from the District of Arizona concerning another Lanham Act case, it is now seems likely, to the extent it was not after the Supreme Court’s decision in Ebay, that the days in which plaintiffs can count on a presumption of irreparable harm in an IP case of any type may be numbered.
The challenge now, for intellectual property owners, scrupulous advertisers and courts, is to prevent us from sliding into a culture of infringe now, pay later. Infringers will no doubt in every case assert that irreparable harm cannot be proven because the wrongdoing can be remedied by payment of damages, in the form of a license fee or, in the case of false advertisers and trademark infringers, payments for proven diverted sales. That leaves the plaintiff with a difficult task to prove otherwise, the danger the presumption of irreparable harm was designed to prevent. And so the battle lines are re-drawn.
