Did Aereo Open the Door to Compulsory Licenses?

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Did Aereo Open the Door to Compulsory Licenses?

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Clients in need of copyright and trademark protection depend on our skilled litigators and IP lawyers with a proven record of success. Technology companies bring us cutting-edge and novel copyright protection matters centered on the dissemination and transmission of copyrighted works and content. Clients in the entertainment industry rely on our guidance on critical issues surrounding copyright protection for movies, television, music and other art forms, and we also work with fashion and consumer goods companies on protecting and enforcing their copyrights. 

Clients seek our help with the strategic selection, registration, management, enforcement and defense of trademark, trade dress and domain name rights—often their most valuable assets. Local and global brands rely on us to protect them from infringement and dilution by guarding their assets from competitors who aim to weaken their names. We also offer strategies to minimize risk of liability for trademark infringement and have successfully defended many companies in litigation against parties seeking to overreach with allegations of trademark or trade dress infringement, domain name misuse or cybersquatting. We consider not only potential infringement of third-party rights, but also whether a potential name or trademark can be registered and provide clients with the desired exclusivity and global market impact. Clients looking to prevent third-party misappropriation of trademarks and names depend on us to oppose registrations and seek cancellations of existing registrations, and to defend their trademarks in proceedings in the US Patent and Trademark Office, under the Madrid Protocol and before national and regional patent and trademark offices.

Intellectual Property Litigation

In this article published by Law360, Andrea Weiss Jeffries and Elaine Zhong discuss why the issue of Internet retransmission services may continue to be the subject of federal court litigation after the Ninth Circuit decides AereoKiller, absent clear direction by Congress or the Supreme Court.

After the US Supreme Court's ruling in ABC v. Aereo Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2498 (2014), that Aereo's Internet retransmission service was “substantially similar” to cable, and therefore violated the Transmit Clause of the Copyright Act, another similar internet retransmission service has succeeded in using the analogy to cable to obtain a ruling that it is eligible for a compulsory license for cable systems adopted as part of the 1976 Copyright Act amendments under 17 U.S.C. § 111. Read the full article.

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