U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued a Truck Manifest CSMS message announcing that it has resolved the problem with ACE Truck Manifest not generating truck manifest EDI status notifications.
The International Trade Commission has instituted a section 337 patent-based investigation of certain laser imageable lithographic printing plates pursuant to a complaint.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued an ACE Portal Accounts CSMS message providing, as an attachment, the February 2008 ACE Trade Account Owner (TAO) monthly update.
U.S. district judges in Oklahoma City have ruled contrastingly on requests for attorney’s fees by victorious P2P defendants. The court was the first to require the RIAA to pay fees, in the Capitol v. Foster ruling by Judge Lee West (WID July 18 p5). But West’s colleague Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange last week denied fees to another ex-defendant, in Warner v. Stubbs. Both defendants said they were “prevailing parties,” entitled to fees. But Miles-LaGrange said the fact that the RIAA dropped its case against Tallie Stubbs when only “minimal discovery had been undertaken,” and the trade group’s “covenant” not to sue again (WID July 5 p8), kept Stubbs from being deemed the prevailing party under the Copyright Act. Nor does she qualify for fees under the DMCA, since her claims didn’t allege “misrepresentation” by the RIAA of her online behavior, Miles-LaGrange said. RIAA withdrawal of its suit against Stubbs, soon after her attorney Marilyn Barringer-Thomson filed an accusation against the group of “extortion,” got widespread attention (WID Aug 28/06 p1). Barringer-Thomson also represented Debbie Foster, who won fees after the RIAA accused her of secondary liability after it identified Foster’s daughter as its primary target. In another case, a White Plains, N.Y., federal magistrate judge has cited the Supreme Court Twombly ruling on specificity in pleading to deny P2P defendants’ motion to add counterclaims. Twombly has seen increasing use by both sides in recent P2P cases, though judges have split on whether it goes against “boilerplate” RIAA complaints or defendants’ counterclaims (WID March 3 p2). Elektra v. Santangelo II is a case against the children of the first P2P defendant known to have pushed for a trial against the RIAA. Robert and Michelle Santangelo sought to assert counterclaims against the RIAA, including “breach of duty to warn,” false advertising and deceptive trade practices under New York and federal law, copyright misuse, computer fraud, trespass and civil conspiracy. Most of those counterclaims have no legal basis under Twombly, Magistrate Judge Mark Fox told Judge Stephen Robinson. He ruled that New York law on private-investigator licensing doesn’t offer a private right of action -- only the secretary of state can move against unlicensed investigators. Several P2P defendants have accused RIAA investigator MediaSentry of lacking the license needed for its searches of their shared folders to show infringement. Police have questioned MediaSentry on its P2P investigations in Massachusetts (WID Feb 21 p3).
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a press release announcing that on March 3, 2008, the Bush Administration submitted to Congress the 2008 Trade Policy Agenda and the 2007 Annual Report on the Trade Agreements Program.
The International Trade Commission has instituted a section 337 patent-based investigation of certain liquid crystal display (LCD) modules, products containing same, and methods for using the same pursuant to a complaint.
The International Trade Commission has instituted a section 337 patent-based investigation of certain refrigerators and components thereof pursuant to a complaint.
Qualcomm lost a key court case in the United Kingdom in its long-running battle with Nokia over patents. It was the second loss for Qualcomm in a week, after the U.S. International Trade Commission last week rejected Qualcomm’s petition for review of a December decision that Nokia doesn’t infringe three alleged Qualcomm patents. Both companies are scheduled to square off this summer in Delaware as a court there holds what’s expected to be a hearing consolidating various lawsuits and countersuits.
The RIAA is trying to avoid a snowball effect after a federal judge in Connecticut ruled the trade group’s infringement claims too vague and expressed skepticism that its “making available” theory of infringement is sound (WID Feb 26 p7). Defense lawyers in New York, a hotbed of P2P cases, quickly notified courts there of the Connecticut ruling. The RIAA has responded to at least one, in Brooklyn federal court, by citing a recent favorable ruling from Michigan. Meanwhile, the RIAA has been told by two judges recently that it must file separate complaints against defendants who had been sued together.
The RIAA has run into another judge who not only rejects its theory that “making available” files in a shared folder counts as infringement, but who frowns on a crucial and inexpensive way the group has won favorable rulings in P2P cases. A few judges nationwide have kept the RIAA from scoring speedy victories, notably in San Diego, where the trade group’s standard complaint was rejected as impermissibly vague (WID Sept 11 p2). Defendants elsewhere have cited the San Diego ruling to resist RIAA. Now in the U.S. District Court in New Haven, Conn., Judge Janet Arterton has told the major record labels that she can’t grant their motion for a default judgment in Atlantic v. Brennan. Nothing in the “current sparse record” indicates why Christopher Brennan didn’t respond to being served by the RIAA, a silence that the trade group reads as not contesting its charges. But Brennan’s lapse is “negligent at most,” Arterton said. She cited another court’s opinion that even “gross negligence” weighs only “somewhat” against defendants. Arterton called “problematic” the RIAA’s contention, supported by the Justice Department, that making files available for distribution is infringement. She cited a 7- volume treatise on copyright by Google Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry in which he wrote that “actual distribution” is required to infringe. This seems to be the first instance of a judge citing Patry, a vocal critic of the RIAA and former adviser to the Register of Copyrights, in rejecting an RIAA argument. Arterton also cited a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against adult publisher Perfect 10 finding that “actual dissemination” is required for distribution. That court said Google didn’t “distribute” full-sized infringed images because it didn’t host them (WID May 17 p1). Arterton cited “colorable defenses” asserted in other cases that weigh in favor of Brennan, including a challenge to the constitutionality of statutory damages under the Copyright Act in UMG v. Lindor (WID Nov 28 p6) and a copyright-misuse counterclaim alleging antitrust behavior in Lava v. Amurao in Manhattan federal court. There’s no reason to think the RIAA will lose evidence, suffer “increased difficulties of recovery” or be harmed by those exploiting “greater opportunity for fraud and collusion” if its motion is denied, Arterton said. She echoed San Diego colleague Rudi Brewster, who said the Supreme Court’s Twombly ruling that complaints demand more than “labels and conclusions” was a strike against RIAA’s “boilerplate listing” of alleged infringements. The RIAA’s claims must be “more than mere conjecture,” Arterton said.