copyright litigation Archives

Oct 30, 2018

Temporarily Grounded: American Airlines Seeks Court Intervention to Register Its Corporate Logo

American Airlines has sued the Acting Register of the U.S. Copyright Office seeking judicial review of the Copyright Office’s decision to reject American’s application to register its award-winning corporate logo, known as the Flight Symbol. Registration of the Flight Symbol has been in a holding pattern since 2016 when American’s first application to the U.S. Copyright Office was grounded for lack of creativity. While the Copyright Office acknowledges that only a “modicum of creativity is necessary”[i] to register a work under the Copyright Act, it ruled that the Flight Symbol fails to meet this minimal standard.[ii] American continued to challenge… Read more

Jan 21, 2016

Will the Supreme Court Clarify the Standard for Awarding Attorneys’ Fees under §505 of the Copyright Act?

The Supreme Court has granted certiorari to address the standards to be applied in awarding attorney’s fees under 17 U.S.C.§505 of the Copyright Act. At issue is whether Supap Kirtsaeng, the prevailing defendant in a copyright lawsuit, should be awarded his attorney’s fees. This is Mr. Kirtsaeng’s second trip to the Supreme Court. The Court held in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 1351 (2013) that under the “first sale” doctrine (codified at 17 U.S.C. §109(a)), Kirtsaeng, as the lawful owner of the particular physical copy of the textbook purchased abroad, was permitted to resell that… Read more