Source: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=dc2f1c11-99d3-47d1-810f-48d3a59f1f88
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 02:41:42+00:00

Document:
March 4, 2019, marked the first time in over 100 years that the Supreme Court of the United States issued two copyright decisions in the same day  – both unanimous and both strict interpretations of statutory language. In the first of these two decisions, the Supreme Court unanimously held in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corporation v. Wall-Street.com that copyright owners must obtain a registration from the U.S. Copyright Office prior to filing an infringement action.  The Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, resolved a long-standing circuit split on whether the “application approach” (merely filing a copyright application) or the “registration approach” (obtaining a copyright registration) is sufficient to file a copyright infringement suit under § 411(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976. In the second decision, the Court in Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc. determined that “full costs” under § 505 of the Copyright Act did not authorize awarding litigation expenses beyond those specified in the general costs statute.
Given the Supreme Court’s Fourth Estate decision, there should be a flood of copyright applications at the U.S. Copyright Office given the low cost to file and average seven-month wait time to receive registration.  Upon registration of the copyright, a copyright owner can recover for infringement that occurred both before and after registration. Expedited registration is available;  however, even expedited processing may not provide a registration quickly enough for preliminary injunctive relief for works that do not qualify for Section 408(f)’s exception for works such as music and movies that are vulnerable to pre-distribution infringement.
As noted above, in the second of the two decisions, the Court in Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc. determined that “full costs” under § 505 of the Copyright Act did not authorize the appellate court to award litigation expenses beyond those specified by Congress in the general costs statute.
Section 411(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides that “no civil action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until…registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.” The Ninth and Fifth Circuits followed the “application approach,” finding that a filed copyright application was sufficient to file a copyright infringement suit. The Tenth and Eleventh Circuits followed the “registration approach,” finding that registration of a work at the U.S. Copyright Office is required before commencing an infringement suit.  The “application approach” was more favorable to copyright plaintiffs because the U.S. Copyright Office can take several months, and at times, more than a year, to issue a registration in the normal course (non-expedited).
The Court’s strict interpretation of language approach in Fourth Estate, interpreting the word “registration” to mean exactly that, registration and not application, is also seen in the Court’s Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc. decision, issued unanimously on the same day as Fourth Estate.  In Rimini Street, the Court determined that “full costs” under § 505 of the Copyright Act did not authorize the appellate court to award litigation costs beyond those specified by Congress in the general costs statutes applicable to all federal court actions.  Rather, “‘full costs’ are all the ‘costs’ otherwise available under the law.”  Those costs consist only of the six categories specified in 28 U.S.C. §§ 1821 and 1920, essentially (1) clerk and marshal fees, (2) transcript fees, (3) printing and witness fees and costs, (4) exemplification and copying fees, (5) docket fees, and (6) compensation of court-appointed experts and interpreters. At trial, a jury agreed with Oracle that Rimini Street, while providing software support services to Oracle customers, copied Oracle‘s software without authorization. The Ninth Circuit allowed Oracle to recover $12.8 million in litigation expenses, as well as $3.4 million in costs and $28.5 million in attorney’s fees, in addition to the jury award of $35.6 million for copyright infringement and $14.4 million for violation of state computer access statutes. Although Rimini Street lost its copyright infringement case to Oracle, its successful appeal of the Ninth Circuit’s allowance of litigation expenses saved it $12.8 million.
Content owners in the publishing, music, television, film, photography, and videogame industries routinely file copyright registration to protect the content they create and distribute. Routine registration in the software technology industry sector and other areas is less prevalent. For software, as for other types of content, the requirements are not onerous and also allow for the protection of confidential source codes.  Oracle’s recent Supreme Court defeat should not distract us from noticing that even in that defeat Oracle did receive an award of $28.5 million in attorneys’ fees and $3.4 million in costs (together, nearly equaling the copyright infringement damages award) noted above in the Rimini Street decision. The award of that $31.9 million was possible only because Oracle had timely registered its software.
Others who may benefit from routine registration include any entity that creates original materials such as internal training manuals and product user manuals which may be copied and misused by ex-employees, distributors, or customers. Any of these works can be registered with trade secret material protected from public filing and disclosure.  Also, many fashion companies regularly create seasonal designs used on handbags or clothing. These designs include floral prints, animal designs, and other pictorial features and arrangements of text seen on handbags and clothing. Many companies also own trademarks or packaging designs that also may be protectable through copyright. Given the frequency with which certain notorious infringers in the industry create replicas of these designs, companies should be armed and ready with copyright registrations for these designs.

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