Law, Strategy, and Risk in Commercial Disputes
You run a website that lets people upload videos. Some of the site's users upload clips that include songs. And some of the songs belong to copyright owners who don't like the idea of having people hear their tunes for free.
Blawgletter knows just how you feel. We also know the question you itch to…
The Ninth Circuit today upheld an order that granted class status to a federal securities fraud case against Amgen. Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust Funds v. Amgen Inc., No. 09-56965 (9th Cir. Oct. 8, 2011).
The panel gave the back of its hand to Amgen's jutting chin of a point — that the class…
The chain works like this:
The online hawkers of handbags bearing the label of a famous high-end maker get their website services from a firm that "hosts" the websites (running the servers, granting "bandwidth", and giving IP ("Internet protocol") addresses) — all for a fee. The hosting firm in turn obtains the servers, bandwidth, and IP addresses under leases from an outfit…
If you work much on antitrust lawsuits, you learn the names of cases that inspire strong feelings on both sides of the "v." Concord Boat lives in that realm.
The Eighth Circuit ruled after a jury trial in Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 207 F.3d 1039 (8th Cir. 2000), that 24 boat-makers had no antitrust…
Why do we have antitrust laws?
The Supreme Court has called them "the Magna Carta of free enterprise", United States v. Topco Assocs., Inc., 405 U.S. 596, 610 (1972), and the Sherman Act "a comprehensive charter of economic liberty", Northern Pac. R.R. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 4 (1958).
Sounds great. But…
[I]t is not clear just what point I am missing.
Montz v. Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc., No. 08-56954, slip op. at 5933 (9th Cir. May 4, 2011) (O'Scannlain, J., dissenting from 7-4 en banc ruling that federal copyright law does not preempt state law claims for breach by film or television producer/director of…
At some point, litigation must come to an end. That point has now been reached.
The Facebook, Inc. v. Pacific Northwest Software, Inc., No. 08-16745, slip op. at 12 (9th Cir. Apr. 11, 2011) (affirming summary judgment against Winkelvoss twins on ground they Should Have Known Better — and probably did — than to…
The pro baseball player from Japan fell through a deck while taking a tour around the Marianas Resort and Spa on the Pacific island of Saipan. The pitcher, Kouichi Taniguchi, at first said he felt fine, but two weeks later claimed the collapse hurt him. Bad.
He sued. He sought damages for, among other…
Does the federal Arbitration Act allow you to appeal an arbitrator's award to a federal court of appeals, skipping the district court? What if the other side agreed to the direct appeal thing?
The Ninth Circuit held in Johnson v. Wells Fargo Mortgage, Inc., No. 09-15937 (9th Cir. Feb. 15, 2011), that the Act bars…
A long, long time ago, in a Golden State far, far away, a denim genius built dungarees for working stiffs. We know him now as Levi Strauss. Or, more likely, as the namesake of modern day Levi's jeans.
But Blawgletter didn't know — and perhaps you didn't either — that a key feature of…