Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

September 07, 2023
9th Circuit: Pinterest Entitled To Safe Harbor On Copyright Claims

SAN FRANCISCO — Because there is no dispute that algorithms and other processes employed by Pinterest for displaying content “alter user-uploaded content to facilitate access,” the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the rejection of copyright infringement claims by a graphic artist and photographer against the style and design sharing website.
September 07, 2023
DOL Wins Dismissal Of ForUsAll’s APA Suit Over Cryptocurrency Release

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Saying a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) release regarding cryptocurrency is not final agency action and the requested relief does not appear “likely to redress [plaintiff ForUsAll Inc.]’s alleged injury,” a District of Columbia federal judge granted dismissal of the suit filed by a retirement plan service provider.
September 06, 2023
9th Circuit Nixes ‘Punchbowl’ Trademark Holding In Light Of Jack Daniel’s Ruling

PASADENA, Calif. — The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent trademark dilution decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC led a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel to vacate its ruling in a dispute between two online-based companies over the “Punchbowl” trademark and designate the case for reargument.
September 06, 2023
9th Circuit Remands Google Play Antitrust Appeal For Likely Class Decertification

SAN FRANCISCO — In the wake of a California federal judge’s ruling excluding the opinions of an expert on which he previously relied in granting certification of a consumer class in the consolidated monopolization suit over Google LLC’s Play Store, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted Google’s motion to remand its appeal of the certification ruling for further proceedings.
September 05, 2023
Judge Remands Fired ByteDance Engineer’s Suit, Dismisses Partial Copyright Claim

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge on Sept. 1 remanded to state court claims brought by a former engineer that ByteDance Inc., the owner of the TikTok social media app, violated California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by allegedly scraping other social media apps’ content and creating fake users to boost its platform, but dismissed the engineer’s claims against ByteDance to the extent they are preempted by federal copyright law.
September 05, 2023
High Court Told No ADA Injury From Websites Of Hotels Tester Didn’t Plan To Visit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Because a self-described tester had no plans to visit its place of business, a hotel chain tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its Sept. 1 merits reply brief that she did not have standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to sue over its website’s purported noncompliance with Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements.
September 01, 2023
In Win For Meta, Panel Upholds Summary Judgment Of Patent Ineligibility

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Texas did not err in declaring that all asserted claims of a method of predicting web visitor “intent” when recommending webpages are ineligible for patenting, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in affirming.
September 01, 2023
Trade Groups Concur With DOJ That Texas Law Restricts Social Media Firms’ Speech

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Largely agreeing with an amicus curiae brief filed by the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of the United States, two nonprofit internet trade associations filed a supplemental brief reiterating their request that the U.S. Supreme Court find that a Texas social media content moderation law violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and that it reverse a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that disposed of an injunction preventing the law’s enforcement.
August 31, 2023
Patent Board Stands By Refusal To Institute Inter Partes Review

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A request by Netflix Inc. for rehearing of a May decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that denied the streaming service’s petition for inter partes review (IPR) of an automated browsing patent was denied by a divided board on Aug. 30.
August 30, 2023
Nonprofits, States Urge High Court To Take Up Social Media, State-Actor Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of states, a coalition of nonprofit groups and a legal organization filed amicus curiae briefs supporting a conservative commentator’s petition for certiorari in which he asks the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether a state agency violates the First Amendment when it coerces a social network operator to delete users’ speech that the government deems disfavored.
August 30, 2023
Gambia, Meta Settle Remaining Discovery Disputes Over Myanmar’s Acts Of Genocide

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A three-year disagreement over whether Meta Platforms Inc. could be compelled to produce Facebook posts and messages of Myanmar officials came to a close when a District of Columbia federal judge approved the parties’ stipulation to enter final judgment and close the case in which the Republic of the Gambia had sought discovery to use in a proceeding regarding Myanmar’s acts of genocide.
August 30, 2023
2nd Circuit: Access Codes Are Coupons; Incentive Payments Not Per Se Unlawful

NEW YORK — A trial court employed the wrong legal standard when it approved a settlement between The New York Times and subscribers in a case over auto renewals and erred in finding that the access codes provided as part of the settlement were not coupons under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled; however, the appellate panel reiterated its holding in Melito v. Experian Marketing Solutions, Inc. and ruled “that incentive awards are not per se unlawful.”
August 30, 2023
Investor’s Daughter Asks Supreme Court To Decline To Hear Bespeaks-Caution Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following the death of an investor who filed a class action over a real estate investment company’s alleged misrepresentations in social media posts soliciting investments, his daughter filed a brief requesting that the Supreme Court deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the company, saying the company mischaracterizes the findings of a federal appeals court’s ruling.
August 30, 2023
SEC Requests Interlocutory Appeal In Crypto Case, Citing Recent Crypto Decision

NEW YORK — The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a motion to certify for interlocutory appeal in its case against a crypto asset firm it accuses of selling billions of units of its cryptocurrency without registering it as a security, arguing that the recent ruling in its case from a federal judge in New York that the crypto assets do not satisfy a long-standing test for securities “explicitly” contradicts another ruling on a similar matter in the same district.
August 29, 2023
AI Companies Say ‘Fair Use’ Protects Chatbot From Copyright Holders’ Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI Inc. and affiliated companies that developed the ChatGPT AI program on Aug. 28 moved to dismiss the bulk of two putative class actions filed against them by writers and copyright holders including comedian Sarah Silverman, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to plead copyright infringement as OpenAI never distributed “derivative works” and was allowed under “fair use” to train its chatbot with large datasets of text.
August 28, 2023
Judge Extends Restraining Order In FTC’s AI Sales Case

SAN DIEGO — A federal judge on Aug. 25 extended a temporary restraining order in a Federal Trade Commission action in a case claiming a company and various individual defendants charged up to hundreds of thousands of dollars for allegedly artificial intelligence-based online store management that never materialized the promised revenues.
August 25, 2023
5th Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of Secretary’s Claims After Firing For Facebook Post

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana court secretary who was fired after a co-worker complained about a comment she made, as well as her post on social media regarding a motorist who drove through a blockade of protestors, failed to show that her right to free speech outweighed the interests of the judicial district where she worked, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming a trial court’s dismissal of her claims with prejudice.
August 25, 2023
Contempt Findings In Oracle, Rimini Copyright Row Largely Upheld By 9th Circuit

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Aug. 24 said that while a federal judge in Nevada committed no abuse of discretion in holding Rimini Street Inc. in contempt for its continued storage of Oracle USA Inc. files in its computer systems, the tech support company was wrongly enjoined from de minimis copying of Oracle source code and wrongly sanctioned for copying an Oracle database file it received from a customer.
August 24, 2023
OpenAI, Radio Host Debate Where Defamation Suit Belongs

ATLANTA — A radio host who claims that he was defamed by ChatGPT when it described him to a journalist as the defendant in embezzlement case and OpenAI Inc. have both responded to an order to show cause on whether the company’s diversity jurisdiction allegations were sufficient to keep the case in federal court in Georgia.
August 23, 2023
Antitrust Suit Over Alleged Google, Apple Noncompete Agreement Dismissed

SAN JOSE, Calif.— A group of internet search engine users saw their antitrust claims against Google LLC and Apple Inc. dismissed by a California federal judge, who ruled that the plaintiffs did not allege sufficient facts to support their assertions that the two companies entered into a clandestine arrangement under which Apple agreed not to develop a search engine that would compete with Google in exchange for payments of billions of dollars.
August 22, 2023
Mothers Say Roblox Preyed On Sons With ‘Illegal Gambling’ In Putative Class Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Two mothers filed a putative class action in California federal court on behalf of their minor sons accusing Roblox Corp., the operator of an online video game platform played by millions of children, and three companies that allegedly operate gambling games on Roblox, of racketeering and violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by allegedly targeting children with gambling games.
August 18, 2023
DOJ Wants To Argue In High Court Disputes Over State Actors, Facebook Blocking

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), on behalf of the United States, filed motions with the U.S. Supreme Court requesting argument time in two parallel lawsuits focusing on when a government employee’s blocking of individuals from social media accounts constitutes a state action resulting in violations of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
August 17, 2023
In Longstanding Copyright Row, Injunction Against Rimini Temporarily Stayed

LAS VEGAS — An emergency motion to stay an injunction pending the outcome of an appeal by Rimini Street Inc. to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has been denied by a federal judge in Nevada, but in the same order the judge agreed to temporarily administratively stay the relief she recently ordered until the appellate court resolves an as-yet unfiled Rimini motion for a stay.
August 16, 2023
DMCA, UCL Row Dispute Over Digital Street Scenery Dismissed In California

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Allegations by a technical artist that his former employer, an autonomous vehicle company, falsely represented to a third party that his digital urban scenery was a work for hire under federal copyright law have been dismissed by a California federal judge.
August 16, 2023
Federal Judge Rules SEC Can Argue Crypto Is Security In Case Against Singapore Firm

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York denied a cryptocurrency firm’s motion to dismiss a complaint filed against it by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission wherein the SEC alleges that the firm schemed to defraud investors, finding that the SEC is within its authority to argue that cryptocurrencies are securities.