Maryland Intellectual Property Law Blog : Maryland Intellectual Property Lawyer & Attorney : Brian Wm. Higgins : Serving Baltimore, Columbia, Frederick

• UPDATE: Star Scientific vs. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

     Next Monday, Petersburg, Virginia-based Star Scientific, Inc. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. will resume their battle over allegations of RJR's infringement of Star's U.S. Patent Nos. 6,202,649 and 6,425,401, as the parties open the first of five days of their jury trial in the courtroom of the Honorable Marvin Garbis of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. Star's lawsuit has a long history, including a bench trial on the issue of the enforceability of the asserted patents in 2005. On June 25, 2007, Judge Garbis found Star’s patents to be unenforceable on the basis of inequitable conduct by Star’s attorneys during prosecution of the patents before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Judges Michel, Dyk, and Schall) reversed, and now the case is back before the trial court. Start time: 10:00 am, May 18.

Related posts:  Inequitable Conduct, Conspiracy Theory

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• A.V. (Minors) v. iParadigms, LLC, No. 08-1424 and 08-1480 (4th Cir. Apr. 16, 2009)

     Plaintiffs, four minors (who at the time of their complaint attended high schools in McLean, VA, and Tucson, AZ), brought a copyright infringement suit against iParadigms, LLC, based on the company's use of essays and other papers written by plaintiffs for submission to their high school teachers through an online service operated by iParadigms called "Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Service." 

     According to iParadigms, Turnitin offers high school and college educators an automated means of verifying whether works submitted by students are originals and not the products of plagiarism. When a school subscribes to iParadigms’ service, it typically requires its students to submit their written assignments "via a web-based system available at www.turnitin.com or via an integration between Turnitin and a school’s course management system."  The website uses a "click-wrap" agreement (outlining terms and conditions) for site use. Turnitin then compares the submitted paper and produces a report for teachers suggesting a percentage of the work, if any, that appears not to be original. 

     Three of the students submitted papers with a disclaimer objecting to the archiving of their works. Plaintiffs alleged that iParadigms infringed their copyright interests in their works by archiving them in the Turnitin database without their permission.

     The issue for the Fourth Circuit was whether the archiving of the students' works was a "fair use," one of the statutory exceptions to a copyright owner’s bundle of rights (17 U.S.C. § 107). In reaching its decision, the Fourth Circuit considered the four nonexclusive factors in making a "fair use" determination: 

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