Source: http://blog.internetcases.com/page/82/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 03:37:48+00:00

Document:
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has confirmed that a defendant subjects itself to specific personal jurisdiction in a forum when it (1) willfully infringes the copyright of a resident of that forum, and (2) knows the plaintiff’s principal place of business is in that forum.
Brayton Purcell LLP, a California law firm, sued Recordon & Recordon, another California law firm, for copyright infringement in the Northern District of California after discovering that Recordon & Recordon had allegedly copied several pages of Brayton Purcell’s website and posted them on its own site. Brayton Purcell is located in the Northern District of California, while Recordon & Recordon is located in the Southern District.
Recordon & Recordon moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. Because defendant is a resident of the forum state, the court noted that (a la Pennoyer v. Neff) personal jurisdiction was not at issue, but construed defendant’s motion as one challenging venue. Acting under Ninth Circuit authority interpreting the venue provision for copyright matters (28 U.S.C. §1400(a)), the court applied a personal jurisdiction analysis to answer the question of whether venue was proper in the Northern District.
The analysis eventually became one of whether the court could exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant. One of the elements that must be proven to substantiate specific personal jurisdiction in a copyright infringement action is that the defendant purposefully directed activities to the forum. Proof of such “purposeful direction” satisfies the “effects test” set forth in Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1983). In this case, the court applied the powerful jurisdictional holding of Columbia Pictures Television v. Krypton Broadcasting of Birmingham, Inc., 106 F.3d 284 (9th Cir. 1997) to conclude that defendant had made such a purposeful direction of activity.
In the Columbia Pictures case, the Ninth Circuit held that the defendant subjected itself to personal jurisdiction in another state where it had “willfully infringed copyrights owned by Columbia, which as [the defendant] knew, had is principal place of business in [the forum district].” The court in this case concluded that Columbia Pictures was directly on point, and that Brayton Purcell had satisfied the effects/purposeful direction test by making a prima facie showing that Recordon & Recordon willfully infringed Brayton Purcell’s copyrights and by alleging without dispute that Recordon & Recordon knew Brayton Purcell’s principal place of business was in the Northern District of California.
Brayton Purcell LLP v. Recordon & Recordon, — F.Supp.2d —, 2005 WL 639706 (March 18, 2005).
This entry was posted in Personal Jurisdiction on March 23, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
The New York Workers’ Compensation Board allowed the State Insurance Fund to install a wireless network in the Syracuse office of the Board, enabling the Fund’s attorneys to access their files during proceedings before the Board. Other attorneys appearing before the Board were denied wireless Internet access. The Central New York Workers’ Compensation Bar Association, as well as a couple individual plaintiffs, filed suit against the Board, alleging that its policy to allow the Fund but not other attorneys access to a wireless network was arbitrary and capricious. The trial court agreed, and the decision was affirmed on appeal.
The court held that although the fund is an agency of the State, in litigation it is considered to be a separate entity. Thus, it is of the same status as any other litigant appearing in proceedings before the Board, and not entitled to special treatment.
Matter of Central New York Workers’ Comp. Bar Assn. v. State of New York Workers’ Compensation Bd., 2005 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 2877 (March 18, 2005).
This entry was posted in Litigation on March 21, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
This entry was posted in Podcasts on March 18, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
An administrative panel of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) has ordered the transfer of the domain name “nyjets.com” to the owner of the New York Jets football team. The panel determined, among other things, that the registrant’s unsupported assertions of plans to use the name for an aircraft leasing business did not prove it had rights or legitimate interests in the name.
NFL Properties LLC and New York Jets LLC brought this WIPO action under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, seeking a transfer of nyjets.com from Link Commercial Corp., a company located in the Bahamas. The Complainants argued that (1) the domain name was confusingly similar to the NEW YORK JETS and NY JETS trademarks, (2) the registrant had no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name, and (3) the domain name had been registered and used in bad faith.
In determining that Link had registered and used the name in bad faith, the panel looked to the elevated price Link at which it had offered the name for sale (no less than $2,000), and the fact that Link had a history of registering other domain names in bad faith.
NFL Prop. LLC v. Link Commercial Corp., Case No. D2004-1087 (March 10, 2005).
This entry was posted in Cybersquatting on March 17, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
The California Court of Appeal has upheld a trial court’s denial of a petition for writ of mandamus which would have ordered the board to remove from its website information about the plaintiff physician’s past disciplinary record. The physician had argued that certain California statutes (Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 803.1 and 2027) did not permit the board to post information on its website pertaining to the plaintiff’s completion of a probation period. The court held that the plain meaning of the statutes demonstrate that the board is specifically required to post on the Internet information about a physician’s disciplinary history. Furthermore, despite an apparent drafting error in the enacted version of §2027, the court held that a review of the legislative intent also supported the conclusion that posting the disciplinary history was mandatory.
Szold v. Medical Bd. Of California, — Cal.Rptr.3d —, 2005 WL 589433 (Cal.App. 4 Dist., March 15, 2005).
This entry was posted in Ethics on March 16, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
In the case of Roskowski v. Corvallis Police Officers’ Association, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon has awarded summary judgment in favor of defendant, holding that a provision of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides immunity to the defendant for the posting of allegedly defamatory email online.
After plaintiff Roskowski resigned from her position as chief of police of Corvallis, Oregon, she filed suit against the Corvallis Police Officers’ Association for defamation. Roskowski claimed that she was damaged by certain anonymous email messages critical of her that were posted on a website that was established by the Association.
In awarding summary judgment, the court held that (1) by merely providing a website the Association qualified as a provider of an “interactive computer service,” (2) the website was merely a vehicle for others to post or present their ideas, thus the Association did not control in any way the information provided, and (3) the Association was not a publisher of information as alleged by Roskowski.
See also the discussion on InternetCases.com of the recent New Jersey case of Donato v. Moldow, 2005 WL 201121 (Ct. App. N.J., January 31, 2005).
This entry was posted in Defamation on March 15, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).
In the recent decision in Heidle v. The Prospect Reef Resort, Ltd., the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York has declined to apply the well-known test set forth in Zippo Manufacturing Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc. to determine whether to exercise general personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant. The court held that notwithstanding other circuits’ application of the Zippo test in a general jurisdiction analysis, the Second Circuit applies such “sliding scale” test only in the context of a specific jurisdiction analysis.
Plaintiff Heidle, a New York resident, filed a diversity personal injury action in federal court in New York against Prospect Reef Resort, a company located in the British Virgin Islands. Prospect Reef moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court granted Prospect Reef’s motion.
As part of her argument, Heidle had argued that the Zippo “sliding scale” test subjected Prospect Reef to personal jurisdiction in New York because Prospect Reef operated a website accessible in New York. While the Zippo test examines the level of interactivity of a company’s website to determine whether the company’s actions thereby provide sufficient contacts with the forum state for the exercise of personal jurisdiction, such an examination was not warranted in this case.
The question before the court was whether it could exercise general personal jurisdiction over the Prospect Reef. The Zippo case provides an analysis of whether specific personal jurisdiction would be proper. The court noted that “the Zippo analysis does not replace the traditional approach for determining the existence of personal jurisdiction over a certain defendant.” Instead of analyzing whether Prospect Reef’s website was “passive,” “active,” or “interactive” as required by Zippo, it applied traditional due process factors to determine that it did not have personal jurisdiction over Prospect Reef.
Heidle v. The Prospect Reef Resort, Ltd., 2005 WL 563085 (W.D.N.Y., February 28, 2005).
This entry was posted in Personal Jurisdiction on March 12, 2005 by Evan Brown (@internetcases).

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