Rick Sanders Law

03/13/2023

Tara is now at Barton LLC, and you might consider reaching out to her for IP- and privacy-related legal needs:

Tara Aaron-Stelluto is a partner in the Nashville office of Barton LLP, where she practices in the areas of Intellectual Property, Business Transactions, and Cybersecurity.

03/13/2023

As you might have heard, I have taken the position as General Counsel of Software Freedom Conservancy, which is a great opportunity for me. For now, the firm isn't taking new client, at least until I get settled in at SFC. I might revive the firm in some limited capacity in the future, depending on how things go at my new position.

08/06/2021

A music label hired a well-known musician to record some music but didn't put anything in writing. That allowed a different music label to swoop in and try to acquire the copyrights from the musician. But who really owns the copyrights? That's a hard question, and this case is a great way to learn about the four main ways you can wind up owning a copyright: creation, joint work, work made for hire (employee type), work made for hire (commissioned type) and assignment.

All the Ways in One Case You can't enforce what you don't own.[ref]For a certain value of "own."[/ref] That might seem fundamental to copyright law, but it's frequently overlooked because it seems so obvious. Not knowing who owns a copyright is like not knowing who owns a house.[ref]Actually, people...

04/15/2021

Oracle's lawsuit against Google over Java is finally over. Although Rick was afraid a broad decision on fair use would go off the rails, the Supreme Court ended up mostly confirming—for better or for worse—the consensus view of fair use. All the same, there were a few surprises and puzzles. Rick explains (perhaps for the last time!).

Oracle v. Google Is Over. And Rick Can Stop Blogging About It Forever. I was in the middle of writing a blog post about The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith—you know, the one about Andy Warhol's use of a photograph of Prince[ref]The musician, not Richard Prince, the pr...

03/26/2021

Here's something to tide you over until the Supreme Court gets around to handing down Oracle v Google: a software case that's even more squarely about leveraging a minor copyright asset to control an entire complex system. And this one has actual fireworks.

The Case That's More "Oracle v. Google" Than Oracle v. Google While we wait for the Supreme Court to hand down its decision in Oracle v. Google, we can have some fun with a case that might be exactly what folks are afraid Oracle v. Google is: use of copyright law to inhibit competition unrelated [.....

03/05/2021

The third big change in IP law wrought by that big omnibus spending bill last year was the restoration of the irreparable harm in trademark cases. That sounds technical, but, as Rick explains, it's a very big deal.

Party Like it's 2006 I mentioned last time that the gigantic Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (remember that?) had three "IP"-related Easter eggs, two for trademark and one for copyright. I blogged about the copyright one last time, the "copyright small claims court." Tara has previously blogge...

01/20/2021

If you have questions or concerns about that "small claims court" for copyright claims you might've heard about, Rick has you covered. While there are answers to most of your questions, we won't know the full story until later this year when the Register issues her regulations.

Last time, Tara discussed one of the three intellectual-property Easter eggs in that massive must-pass "Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021." You probably know the bill better as "that gigantic omnibus spending bill" or perhaps the "COVID-19 Relief Bill." Tara discussed the two trademark-related E...

12/07/2020

The Sixth U.S. Circuit (which is Aaron | Sanders' home circuit) re-emphasizes the need to filter out "ideas" and scènes à faire from computer code, but it still doesn't tell us how. Rick explains.

The Sixth Circuit re-emphasizes the need to filter out "ideas" and scènes à faire, but doesn't quite tell us how.

10/02/2020

Rick has blogged A LOT about Oracle v. Google. Now that it's about to be argued before the United States Supreme Court, Rick has condensed his thoughts into a single post, to help get you up to speed on the issue. Be warned, though: Rick has a few opinions to share.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hold oral argument in Oracle v. Google on October 7. It's supposed to be one of the most important copyright cases in decades. Not only will the Supreme Court visit computer programs for the first time since 1996's Lotus v. Borland, which decided nothing because it was a....