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

• Please visit the Maryland IP Jobs page for a list of Intellectual Property jobs in Maryland (if you would like to have an IP-related job in Maryland listed on this website--for free--please send me the information)
   
• Invotex Group's Michele Riley will be co-presenting a WEBINAR to the MD Bar Association - IP Section titled "Removing the Mystery: Damages in Intellectual Property Disputes" on Thursday, September 10, 2009 from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.  For more information, click here. 
   
• A reader pointed out that in the case of Dayna Staggs v. Kanye West, No. 8:2008cv00728 (filed March 20, 2008), the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland granted in part and denied without prejudice in part Defendant The Island Def Jam Music Group, a division of Universal Music Group's motion to dismiss (memorandum opinion; entered August 17, 2009).  In doing so, the Court, reviewing Plaintiff's copyright infringement claim, found "it it is by no means clear that Staggs would be able to establish that the Universal Defendants had access to his Song ["Volume of the Good Life"], [but] for purposes of the Motion to Dismiss, since Staggs has alleged that [Kanye] West had access to it through his MySpace page, and since the Universal Defendants could conceivably have had access through West, the Court finds that this element is satisfied." Notwithstanding, the Court also found that, "as a matter of law, there is no substantial similarity between the songs ["Volume of the Good Life" and West's "Good Life"]."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

     Last September, the Copyright Office issued an announcement that it had begun beta testing of its web-based registration system, which was part of a new "electronic Copyright Office" (eCO) program (see Copyright Office Announces Electronic Registration Testing). Beginning July 1, 2008, the Copyright Office will offer its online registration system to the public.  Instruction for making claims to copyrighted works may be found here.

     According to a recent Copyright Office announcement, online registration through the eCO is the preferred way to register basic claims for literary works; visual arts works; performing arts works, including motion pictures; sound recordings; and single serials. Advantages of online filing include a lower filing fee; the fastest processing time; online status tracking of your claim; secure payment by credit or debit card, electronic check, or Copyright Office deposit account; and the ability to upload certain categories of deposits directly into eCO as electronic files.

     To register a claim electronically, go to the Copyright Office website at www.copyright.gov and click on the eCO logo shown above.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

     There is so much IP news to talk about these days, it's hard to keep up.  Although a lot of what's going on in the IP world and online blogosphere only indirectly affects Marylanders, it is nontheless still interesting, informative, and often very useful to IP practitioners in this state. So, here is a brief roundup, as it were:

Patent Troll Tracker: the anonymous, often-attacked blogger who runs the Troll Tracker (who are you?!) has an interesting post today called "Patent Troll Sues Fish & Richardson," which describes how a BigLaw lawyer can get into hot water when bitten by the invention bug (I'll be adding Troll Tracker to the blogroll on this blog soon; always an interesting read).

Patently-O: popular, prolific, and not anonymous blogger Dennis Crouch over at long-running Patently-O posted some comments from patent practitioners yesterday, which he collectively entitled "Rule Changes Triage: Dealing with already pending claims prior to November 1." I've already put some of those informative comments to good use.

Recording Industry vs. The People: The good people running the Recording Industry vs. The People blog posted "Jammie Thomas to Appeal!!!" yesterday. For those not following the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) legal blitz (23,000 sued/threatened so far), Ms. Thomas' case was the first to make it through to a trial verdict (she lost), and so the case was watched by many in the industry. See my related post here. The blog is run by veterans Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman over at Vandenberg & Feliu, LLP.

Copyright Office:  The Copyright Office (not the blog) issued an announcement yesterday that should appeal to those thirsty for copyright news. Entitled "Copyright Office Announces Customized Email Subscription Services," it describes an optional email-based news source. Subscribe here. Let's just hope that service is more timely than the announcement, which is shown with an October 2, 2007, date, but my feedreader didn't pick it up (i.e., it wasn't posted on-line) until October 8, 2007.

The Big Lead: Okay, so this site, which I warn you is at times a bit, how should I say this?-salacious, is not an IP blog, but a colleague turned me on to this increasingly-popular sports blog run by two anonymous, self-described "twenty-somethings," and it serves to make a point. As blogs and blogging in general become more and more popular (replacing traditional web sites in many cases), I'm betting that law firms and lawyers, including IP practitioners, will increadingly view this as an opportunity to market a niche practice area, one devoted to legal issues affecting blogs and bloggers. Such a practice area would involve specialty IP issues--copyrights, trademarks, domain disputes, and (to a lesser extent) patents--as well as general areas of the law, like corporate, first amendment, defamation, privacy, and employment law, to name a few.  Hmm, that gives me an idea...

     I'll be back later this week (hopefully, tomorrow) with coverage of last week's flurry of new litigation cases filed in the Federal District Court here in Maryland (all trademark cases). Plus, I have some new patent filing statistics for Maryland.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

     Idling behind a yellow school bus early this morning, I spotted a continuing trend among the dozen teenagers waiting at my neighborhood bus stop:  about half were sporting those ubiquitous white earphone nibs attached to pocket-sized MP3 players. I couldn't help thinking of all of the other Maryland students who would be packing into dorm rooms, classrooms, and on-line chat rooms this week--the first week of school for many in Maryland--where they would reflect on a summer's worth of music downloads and new music sites discovered on the Internet. That thought peaked my curiosity, so I went in search of the latest information about music downloading to see what others are saying about how the music downloading phenomena has impacted copyright laws (and vice versa) in the U.S. 

     I found what I was looking for at Mark Cooper's blog at the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society.  Last week, Mark posted the following interesting summary about music downloading:

"Less than a decade after the advent of file sharing, sales figures indicate that the recording industry sold more singles than albums and unsigned artists sold more singles than record labels. Thus, the digital communications revolution has transformed the creation and distribution of music to the benefit of both consumers and artists."

Mark's entire research article can be found at "Digital Downloading of Music: A Big Pay-Off for Consumers and Artists in the Digital Broadband Era" (it's only 7 pages long, with several revealing historical time-series charts; definitely worth a closer read).

     So consumers and artist are benefiting from the availability of digital music on the Internet.  Not a big surprise.  To see what the record industry had to say about that, I visited the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) web site (the RIAA is the trade group that represents the U.S. recording industry).  RIAA has apparently kicked off the new school year by sending out its seventh round of pre-litigation letters to universities across the U.S. alleging unlawful music downloads on university networks (58 universities were targeted in this round of letters; click here to see if your university is among those reportedly receiving pre-litigation notice).  RIAA's web site states the following about the letters:

"Each pre-litigation settlement letter informs the school of a forthcoming copyright infringement suit against one of its students or personnel and requests that university administrators forward that letter to the appropriate network user."

     The reason for the letters?  According to RIAA's web site,

"[a] survey by Student Monitor from last year found that more than half of college students download music and movies illegally.  According to market research firm NPD, college students alone accounted for more than 1.3 billion illegal music downloads in 2006."  

     I wonder who sponsored the Student Monitor and NPD research firms to arrive at those figures?  In any case, to get a balanced perspective, I visited Eric Bangeman's blog post entitled "Digital Freedom Campaign to organize students against RIAA abuse," posted last April, which summarizes and frames the music downloading issues from another view point.

     Finally, I visited the University of Maryland web site to see what's happening at a local level.  On July 26, 2007, the University issued an announcement entitled Ruckus Digital Music and Entertainment Network Now Available at the University of Maryland.  The Ruckus arrangement is apparently Maryland's attempt to "address[] illegal peer-to-peer file sharing" by University students.  The service is not free, of course.  If you're a student at Maryland and have used the new music downloading service, send me your comments concerning whether your believe it has or will curtail illegal digital music sharing over campus networks.

     So there you have it:  a brief spattering of news about music downloading and copyright issues.  Note: in all fairness to students, who may begrudge being singled out in this post, they are obviously not the only group that downloads music and/or shares music files over the Internet.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland was chosen as the forum for litigating the following case(s), as published by Justia:

• STX, L.L.C. v. J. deBeer & Son, Inc., Case Number 1:2007cv01939, filed July 20, 2007 (okay, this was overlooked last week).

Plaintiff STX, LLC, a Baltimore-based lacrosse equipment manufacturer, has sued Defendant J. deBeer & Son, Inc., for allegedly infringing STX's U.S. Patent No. 5,651,744 by selling lacrosse products through its catalog to Maryland residents.  According to its complaint, STX is seeking a preliminary injunction, damages, and other relief

• Sandler Systems, Inc. v. Rothfeld, Case Number 1:2007cv02005 , filed July 27, 2007

Plaintiff Sandler Systems, Inc., a Stevenson, Maryland-based corporation, has sued Defendants David Rothfeld and Creative Sales + Management, Inc., for allegedly willfully infringing Plaintiff's copyrighted works under 17 U.S.C. 501 et seq. and for certain state law claims.  According to its complaint, Sandler Systems is seeking a permanent injunction and actual, statutory, and exemplary damages among other relief

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Brian Wm. Higgins, J.D., P.E.

I represent authors, artists, and educators, as well as engineers, doctors, scientists, small not-for-profit companies and multi-billion dollar international corporations. My law practice focuses on patent litigation and patent procurement in the life sciences sector (drugs, nutritional supplements, and medical devices), but I also provide patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret counseling in the financial, telecommunications, automotive, environmental protection, and consumer electronics industries, to name a few. As a registered patent attorney and professional engineer, I help companies maximizing the value of their technology assets in the United States and around the world by strategically identifying and managing the business risks associated with procuring, maintaining, licensing, and enforcing intellectual property assets.

Education

J.D., University of Maryland School of Law

M.S., Johns Hopkins University, Whiting School of Engineering (environmental engineering)

B.S., Arizona State University (chemical engineering)

Admissions and Registrations

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Maryland Court of Appeals

District of Columbia

Professional Engineer (P.E.)

Professional Career

Blank Rome, LLP: Attorney

Science Applications International Corporation: Engineer

Woodward-Clyde Consultants: Engineer

U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (CHPPM); Captain/Engineer

Community Service

In addition to blogging for this web site, I volunteer my time as an ad hoc peer reviewer for the Journal of Environmental Health (a National Environmental Health Association publication) and other association publications.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link