By Peter Montine

Juli Adams, a Seattle artist, has sued The Hartz Mountain Corporation for violating its license to use her “Angry Birds” plush pet toy line. Adams created the toy line before the insanely popular video game of the same name existed and licensed the line’s use to Hartz. Once the Angry Birds game exploded in popularity, Hartz used its license with Adams as leverage to negotiate with Rovio, the creator of the Angry Birds video game. As a result of the negotiations, Rovio gave Hartz exclusive rights to sell pet toys based on the video game characters, but Rovio did not inform Adams of this new contract. Now, Adams has sued Hartz for violating her trademark and breaching their contract.

Adams first created her Angry Birds toy line in 2006 at the request of a Hartz marketing executive, who had seen her art show in Montana while on vacation. Inspired by her own cats and their propensity to tear up their toys, Adams decided to make a line of pet toys that did not look happy to be messed with. Adams licensed the line to Hartz but retained the intellectual property rights so that Hartz couldn’t license it to anyone else. Continue reading →

By Stephen Anson

Patent trolls, also known as patent assertion entities (PAEs), have been threatening technology companies for years through patent infringement lawsuits, stifling innovation and profits alike. These PAEs acquire patents primarily to sue companies for patent infringement and to demand licensing fees. Legal expenses for technology companies have been rising due to the increased activity of PAEs, and now the companies are beginning to fight back. Google is leading the charge and has teamed up with five other large technology companies to form an alliance called the License on Transfer (“LOT”) Network.

Some estimates suggest that PAE litigation costs technology companies more than $29 billion per year. The cost of a normal defense (through trial) ranges from $500,000 to $5 million, and possibly even higher. Due to these high costs, technology companies frequently settle and pay PAEs for patent licenses, even though less than 1% of defendants in PAE suits are ultimately found to have infringed a valid patent. Continue reading →

Congressman Jerrold Nadler

By Rachael Wallace

We previously covered the upcoming art royalty legislation in Congress, and now Congress has finally seen the bill in question, aptly named the American Royalties Too (ART) Act. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, the sponsor of the 2011 Equity for Visual Artists Act, introduced the bill on July 15, 2014 in a House subcommittee meeting.

ART would require a 5% royalty on resale to go to the artist for pieces of art that sell for $5,000 or more at auctions. Royalties would be capped at $35,000. The 2011 bill required a 7% royalty on pieces of art over $10,000. After the 2011 bill died in the House, the United States Copyright Office collected feedback and testimony regarding royalties on art. It issued a report of its analysis in December, concluding that there was “no evidence to conclusively establish that [establishing resale royalties] would harm the U.S. visual market.” The Copyright Office then made 10 recommendations for the legislation. Many of the changes in the current legislation come from those recommendations. Continue reading →

By Max Burke

Nutritional supplement company Ubervita filed a lawsuit this month against John Does, claiming the “unknown defendants have conspired to disrupt Ubervita’s business through a campaign of dirty tricks.” This included, among other things, posting fraudulent negative reviews of the company on Amazon.com. Recently, Chief Judge Marsha Pechman of the Western District of Washington granted Ubervita’s request to subpoena Amazon and Craigslist for the purpose of discovering the defendants’ identities.

A few months ago, we wrote about a similar case from Virginia in which Hadeed Carpet Cleaning subpoenaed Yelp (a business review website) in order to identify seven individuals who had left negative reviews of the business on Yelp. The Virginia Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s order that held Yelp in civil contempt for not complying with the subpoena. The Virginia Supreme Court recently accepted review of this case. Continue reading →