Articles Posted in Intellectual Property

The two largest entities in the world of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services are set to collide in a California federal court. 23andMe, the second-largest company in this evolving industry, recently sued Ancestry.com, the largest company, based on alleged patent infringement. The patent at issue involves the way in which each company uses…

Nikola Motor Company, a startup that focuses on hydrogen and electric vehicles, recently filed a $2 billion lawsuit in Arizona again Tesla.

Jean-Noel Frydman filed suit against the French Government in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on April 19, 2018. Frydman, an American citizen born in France, sued the French government, Atout France (France's tourism agency), the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

MLB persuaded Twitter to suspend the account of Rob Friedman, which shows brief videos and GIFs of individual pitches from MLB games, but the fair use doctrine may protect Friedman's tweets.

On Monday the Ninth Circuit ruled that animals do not have standing to sue people for breaking copyright laws. Had Congress intended for copyright protection to extend to animals, the should have expressly written it into the law, the three-judge panel concluded.

The largest social media company in the world faces another legal battle. On Monday, April 16, 2018, US District Judge James Donato ruled in San Francisco federal court that a class action lawsuit could proceed with the allegation that Facebook illegally collected and stored its users biometric data without their permission.

Earlier this month, online dating app developer Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, sued fellow dating app company Bumble for utility and design patent infringement, trademark infringement, and trade secret misappropriation. The suit was filed in the Western District of Texas.

On Tuesday, March 20, 2018, Facebook Inc. was sued by its investors in San Francisco federal court over a claim that the social media company failed to uphold privacy for its users. Investors stated that they faced losses due to the company’s connection to a UK-based research firm, Cambridge Analytica, that collected data for 50 million users without their permission. The same research firm is also connected to President Donald Trump.

On March 13, 2018, Jamaican songwriter Michael May filed a complaint in New York federal court against pop artist Miley Cyrus. May, who performs under the name Flourgon, alleges copyright infringement associated with some of the lyrics in Cyrus's 2013 song, "We Can't Stop."

Uber has found itself in yet another legal battle. On Monday, March 12, 2018, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed a lawsuit against the ride-sharing company based in San Francisco, California after it took over a year to notify its users about a major data breach. Hackers compromised the company’s data back in October 2016;…