For the second time in three years, YouTube (now owned by Google) beat back Viacom's blockbuster copyright infringement case on summary judgment (without having to go to trial).  In 2007, Viacom sued YouTube alleging that YouTube was hosting tens of thousands of copyright infringing videos such as The Daily Show and SpongeBob SquarePants.  In 2010, Judge Stanton ruled against Viacom, finding that the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) protected YouTube as long as videos were removed promptly after being notified by rights holders.

The Court of Appeals last year reversed and sent the case back to Judge Stanton and directed him to consider whether YouTube had specific knowledge of copyright infringement or was willfully blind to specific infringement.   And on April 18, 2013. Judge Stanton reaffirmed his ruling and found that Viacom could not prove that YouTube had such specific knowledge of the copyrighted nature of the videos on its site.  "The burden of showing that YouTube knew or was aware of the specific infringements of the works in suit cannot be shifted to YouTube to disprove."  To add insult to injury, Chad Hurley, YouTube's co-founder sent a sarcastic tweet to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman inviting him to "grab a beer to celebrate".

This fight is not over.  It is extremely likely that this case will head back to the Court of Appeals and, possibly, to the Supreme Court.

How could Jackson Pollock possibly be relevant to patent law and federal jurisdiction?  Chief Justice Roberts provided the answer in the recently-decided case of Gunn v. Minton.  In Gunn, the Court was faced with the question of whether a Texas state court had jurisdiction to hear a state malpractice claim against an attorney even though the underlying issue (whether the experimental use exception to the on-sale bar was properly raised) was related to federal patent law.

Patent law and state courts are usually like oil and water:  Congress has decreed that “No State court shall have jurisdiction over any claim for relief arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents.”  The Texas Supreme Court decided that this statute precluded Texas courts from deciding the malpractice claim at issue. The Supreme Court disagreed and ruled that the case could proceed in Texas courts because the state claim was not part of a "special and slim category" where federal courts must retain exclusive jurisdiction.  Recognizing the complexity of this topic, the Chief Justice added: "In outlining the contours of this slim category, we do not paint on a blank canvas. Unfortunately, the canvas looks like one that Jackson Pollock got to first."

Kudos to the Chief for bringing color and humor to this dry topic!

In February, I wrote a post criticizing ICANN's efforts to introduce new Generic Top-level Domains (gTLDs) such as ".store" and ".home" as creating an unnecessary burden on trademark owners and small companies alike.  At the close of the first round of applications, Google applied for 101 gTLDs and Amazon applied for 76 (and 30 of them are in common).  Each of these cost $185,000 per application plus thousands more in preparation fees.

The Authors Guild, presided over by Scott Turow, recently objected to the program on anticompetitve grounds:

Mr. Turow is one of my favorite authors and I cannot do any better than to echo his views: "The potential for abuse seems limitless."  ICANN should just give up on this whole idea.