intellectual property

A federal judge has approved the National Football League's $50 million settlement with players who contended their rights to publicity were violated by NFL marketing. Bloomberg Businessweek reported U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson opined "the chances of the lawsuit’s succeeding are 'slim at best,' ... calling the settlement a remarkable victory for the class as a whole." Another part of the settlement is the creation of an agency to handle the licensing of ex-players' publicity rights.

With new patent reform legislation introduced in the House of Representatives, Corporate Counsel asks if patent reform should be left to the judiciary, not Congress. But the judiciary may be moving faster anyway: "Most of the key features of the anti-patent troll bill introduced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, dubbed the 'Innovation Act of 2013', could actually end up duplicating moves made by the judiciary, including two decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and changes to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure," according to Corporate Counsel. Goodlatte's bill would allow for shifting reasonable attorney fees from defendants to patent trolls whose "principal business model is to assert patents as their main source of revenue," but the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up two cases involving patent-case fee-shifting, Corporate Consel also reported.

Protecting traditional knowledge from appropriation by others is a problem around the world. Earlier this year, South Africa launched a registry for traditional knowledge that is passed down orally. South Africa's The Southern Times reports: "'One of the aims is to try to make those communities that hold this traditional knowledge, part of the mainstream economy. An important feature of the system is that it immediately allows access to information about the geographical location of the traditional knowledge owners. This is important as it increases the efficiency of prior art research. The system will also provide prior art information for intellectual property offices for patent applications examination purposes."'

PBS NewsHour has a fascinating transcript of an interview with the CEO of Aereo, one of the new subscription streaming services available to "space-shift" and "time-shift" free TV broadcasts to our computers and mobile devices. Aereo was plainly designed to get around copyright restrictions on public performance rights by being set up with individualized antennas for each customer, and Aereo CEO argues that not only does his technology not violate black-letter copyright law but that it also does not violate the spirit of the law.

Here's an excerpt:

"HARI SREENIVASAN: So, you have got the antenna farms that you're building, essentially. If I'm a customer, I have one particular antenna inside of the Aereo room, so to speak.

But does it seem like a technicality, when you actually don't need 5,000 antennas in a room? You're saying it's to be by the letter of the law. Are you violating the spirit of the law?

But does it seem like a technicality, when you actually don't need 5,000 antennas in a room? You're saying it's to be by the letter of the law. Are you violating the spirit of the law?

CHET KANOJIA: Not at all. I think Congress always intended that consumers to have the ability to have an antenna.

And it's a simple manifestation of that, saying, well, that's what the intent was, the consumer can have an antenna. So, whether I put it in my window or my roof or my neighbor's roof, those aren't restrictions that Congress ever intended or proposed.

So, I think it complies with actually the spirit of the law as well, and perhaps more so, because the idea that consumers should have that choice was always intended by Congress."