Federal Reporter, Second Series

Callins v. Collins, 998 F.2d 269 (5th Cir. 1993), was a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals case that was denied writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court concerning the death penalty (510 U.S. 1141 (1994)). The case is most well known and cited for Justice Blackmun's dissent about the role of the Supreme Court in death penalty cases.

Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America, 993 F.2d 1267 (7th Cir. 1993), was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that upheld the right of private organizations to discriminate on the basis of religion when establishing their own membership standards.

MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511 (9th Cir. 1993), was a case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which addressed the issue of whether the loading of software programs into random-access memory (RAM) by a computer repair technician during maintenance constituted an unauthorized software copy and therefore a copyright violation. The court held that it did, although the United States Congress subsequently enacted an amendment to 17 U.S.C. § 117 to specifically overrule this holding in the circumstances of computer repair.

Computer Associates International, Inc. v. Altai, Inc., 982 F.2d 693 (2d Cir. 1992) is a decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that addressed to what extent non-literal elements of software are protected by copyright law. The court used and recommended a three-step process called the Abstraction-Filtration-Comparison test. The case was an appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in which the district court found that defendant Altai's OSCAR 3.4 computer program had infringed plaintiff Computer Associates' copyrighted computer program entitled CA-SCHEDULER.

Schurz Communications v. Federal Communications Commission and the United States of America, 982 F. 2d 1043 (7th Cir. 1992), held in the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, was argued on October 2, 1992 and decided on November 5, 1992. The case dealt with the justification of the FCC's regulation of the way television networks are allowed to distribute and produce programs into syndication. Judge Richard Posner was the circuit judge for the case. This case challenged syndication and financial rules imposed in the 1970s, as broadcast television changed with the popularity of cable television, the rise of the FOX network, and the discrediting of the leverage theory.

In re Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc. Patent Litig., 982 F.2d 1527 (Fed. Cir. 1992) was a case decided in 1992 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the successor of the United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals. It concerned, among other things, whether or not the software on a patented device needed to be disclosed in a patent application.

Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., 977 F.2d 1510 (9th Cir. 1992), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit applied American intellectual property law to the reverse engineering of computer software. Stemming from the publishing of several Sega Genesis games by video game publisher Accolade, which had disassembled Genesis software in order to publish games without being licensed by Sega, the case involved several overlapping issues, including the scope of copyright, permissible uses for trademarks, and the scope of the fair use doctrine for computer code. The case was filed in the U.S.

Mallinckrodt, Inc. v. Medipart, Inc., 976 F.2d 700 (Fed. Cir. 1992) is a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in which the court appeared to overrule or drastically limit many years of U.S. Supreme Court precedent affirming the patent exhaustion doctrine, for example in Bauer & Cie. v. O'Donnell.

Atari Games Corp. v. Nintendo of America Inc., 975 F.2d 832 (Fed. Cir. 1992), was a U.S. legal case in which Atari Games engaged in copyright infringement by copying Nintendo's lock-out system, the 10NES. The 10NES was designed to prevent Nintendo's video game console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), from playing unauthorized game cartridges. Atari, after unsuccessful attempts to reverse engineer the lock-out system, obtained an unauthorized copy of the source code from the United States Copyright Office and used it to create its 10NES replica, the Rabbit. Atari then sued Nintendo for unfair competition and copyright misuse, and Nintendo responded that Atari had engaged in unfair competition, copyright infringement, and patent infringement.

Perpetual Real Estate Services, Inc. v. Michaelson Properties, Inc. 974 F.2d 545 (4th Cir. 1992), is a US corporate law case, concerning piercing the corporate veil.

White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., 971 F.2d 1395 (9th Cir. 1992); 989 F.2d 1512 (9th Cir. 1993), is a 1992 and 1993 case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upholding a cause of action on the part of TV show personality Vanna White against Samsung for depicting a robot on a Wheel of Fortune–style set in a humorous advertisement.

Brown Bag Software v. Symantec Corp. is an intellectual property law case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part the previous ruling of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Brown Bag Software sued Symantec Corporation and John L. Friend, an individual software developer for Softworks Development, for copyright infringement and several state law claims regarding the similarity of Symantec Corporation's and Brown Bag Software's computer outlining programs. The District Court rejected Brown Bag Software's copyright infringement claims and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed these rulings.

United States v. Pace, 955 F.2d 270 (5th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 883 (1992) is a United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit court decision relating to the open fields doctrine limiting the scope of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Hard Rock Cafe Licensing Corp. v. Concession Services, Inc., 955 F.2d 1143 (7th Cir. 1992), is a case from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which extended contributory liability to the context of flea market operators. Finding no distinction between the responsibilities of a landlord-owner and a manufacturer-distributor, the Court applied the Inwood test, holding Concession Services liable for "willful blindness" where they had knowledge that counterfeit Hard Rock Cafe merchandise was being sold at their market and did nothing to "detect or prevent" such sales.

Wright v. Warner Books (1991) was a case in which the widow of the author Richard Wright (1908–1960) claimed that his biographer, the poet and writer Margaret Walker (1915–1998), had infringed copyright by using content from some of Wright's unpublished letters and journals. The court took into account the recent ruling in Salinger v. Random House, Inc. (1987), which had found that a copyright owner had the right to control first publication, but found in favor of Walker after weighing all factors. The case had broad implications by allowing the use of library special collections for academic research.

United States v. Harris, 942 F.2d 1125 (7th Cir. 1991) was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit dealing with the exclusion of the value of property acquired by "gift" from the gross income of two income taxpayers.

Trinsey v. Pennsylvania, 941 F.2d 224 (3d Cir. 1991), was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that confirmed the validity of special elections held without a primary under the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The case came about due to the death of H. John Heinz III, one of the U.S. senators from Pennsylvania, in a plane crash on April 4, 1991. Under the Seventeenth Amendment, state legislatures may give the Governor the power to appoint officials to fill temporarily vacant Senate seats until a special election can be held, and Pennsylvanian law contained a statute executing this and requiring no primaries for the special election.

Step-Saver Data Systems, Inc. v. Wyse Technology was a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primarily concerned with the enforceability of box-top licenses and end user license agreements (EULA) and their place in U.S. contract law. During the relevant period, Step-Saver Data Systems was a value-added reseller, combining hardware and software from different vendors to offer a fully functioning computer system to various end users. Step-Saver's products included software produced by Software Link, Inc (TSL), computer terminals produced by Wyse Technology, and main computers produced by IBM.

Kinney Shoe Corp v. Polan, 939 F.2d 209 (4th Cir. 1991), is a US corporate law case, concerning piercing the corporate veil.

United States Naval Institute v. Charter Communications, Inc. is a notable contract case for discussing the extent and purpose of awarding damages in a breach of contract.

United States v. Hatch, 931 F.2d 1478 (11th Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 883 (1991) is a United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit court decision relating to the open fields doctrine limiting the scope of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The defendant challenged a conviction for drug related offenses for growing marijuana on the basis that the area searched by the police was within the "curtilage" of his home in Palm Beach County, Florida.

United States v. Morris was an appeal of the conviction of Robert Tappan Morris for creating and releasing the Morris worm, one of the first Internet-based worms. This case resulted in the first conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In the process, the dispute clarified much of the language used in the law, which had been heavily revised in a number of updates passed in the years after its initial drafting. Also clarified was the concept of "unauthorized access," which is central in the United States' computer security laws. The decision was the first by a U.S. court to refer to "the Internet", which it described simply as "a national computer network."

Bishop v. Aronov, 926 F.2d 1066 (11th Cir. 1991), is a significant case concerning the balance between academic freedom and the Establishment Clause within public universities. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit addressed whether a public university could restrict a professor’s religious expressions during instructional time without infringing upon First Amendment rights.

Peyote Way Church of God, Inc. v. Thornburgh was a court case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in which the Peyote Way Church of God challenged an exemption in the Controlled Substances Act that permitted members of the Native American Church to use peyote in religious ceremonies while not giving the same exemption to members of other churches. The court ruled that the exemption was primarily a political rather than a religious one and that all of Peyote Way's claims were without merit.

United States v. Giovanetti, 919 F.2d 1223 (7th Cir. 1990), is a criminal case that interpreted the jury instruction known as the ostrich instruction, that willful ignorance counted as knowledge where required for a guilty mind (mens rea) in complicity to commit a crime. The court held that willful ignorance required a positive act to avoid knowledge, otherwise it reduces the mens rea requirement of proving "knowledge" to merely proving "negligence" (should have known). Janis rented a house to Orlando, who Janis should have known would use the house for his illegal gambling ring. Janis was prosecuted as an accomplice to the illegal gambling. The trial court gave the ostrich defense that "you may infer knowledge from a combination of suspicion and indifference to the truth".

Zarin v. Commissioner, 916 F.2d 110 (3rd Cir. 1990) is a United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision concerning the cancellation of debt and the tax consequences for the borrower for U.S. federal income tax purposes.

Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174 (7th Cir. 1990), is a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit authored by Judge Richard Posner. The case has subsequently become a staple of first year Torts courses taught in American law schools, where the case is used to address the question of when it is better to use negligence liability or strict liability.

Lasercomb America, Inc. v. Reynolds, 911 F.2d 970 (4th Cir. 1990) is an appeal filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Initially, Lasercomb filed an action against Holiday Steel for breach of contract, copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, unfair competition, and false designation of origin. The United States District Court ruled in favor of Lasercomb, awarding them punitive damages and actual damages for fraud, rejecting the defense of copyright misuse. On appeal, based on a recognition of the similarity to patent misuse, the holding was reversed, deeming the language contained in the license agreement unreasonable.

United States v. Syufy Enterprises, 903 F.2d 659 (9th Cir. 1990), was an antitrust case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Wilk v. American Medical Association, 895 F.2d 352 (7th Cir. 1990), was a federal antitrust suit brought against the American Medical Association (AMA) and 10 co-defendants by chiropractor Chester A. Wilk, DC, and four co-plaintiffs. It resulted in a ruling against the AMA.

High Tech Gays, et al. v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, et al., 895 F.2d 563 (9th Cir. 1990) was a lawsuit decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on February 2, 1990.

United States v. Burton, 894 F.2d 188 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 498 U.S. 857 (1990) is a United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit court decision relating to the open fields doctrine limiting the scope of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Acting on information that the defendant was cultivating marijuana, two members of the Kentucky State Police, without a search warrant, entered on to the defendant's farm in Warren County, Kentucky. In order to enter the property the two officers climbed over two series of fences which had "No Trespassing" signs posted all around them. Upon discovering large quantities of marijuana being grown, the defendant was arrested and charged with four drug related counts.

In Janetka v. Dabe, 892 F.2d 187 (2d Cir. 1989), the Second Circuit considered whether, under New York law, a plaintiff could satisfy the element of "favorable termination" requisite to a malicious prosecution claim when he had been acquitted on a misdemeanor charge (resisting arrest) but convicted of a less serious charge (disorderly conduct, a violation).

Dial-A-Mattress Franchise Corp. v. Page, 880 F.2d 675 (2d Cir. 1989), is a case that was tried in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which dealt with the issue of whether a plaintiff's telephone number, which translates into a generic term, is entitled to judicial protection when a second comer tries to use a confusingly similar number.

Rogers v. Grimaldi, 875 F.2d 994 (2d Cir. 1989) is a trademark and intellectual freedom case, known for establishing the "Rogers test" for protecting uses of trademarks that implicate intellectual freedom issues.

Data East USA, Inc. v. Epyx, Inc. 862 F.2d 204, 9 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1322 (9th Cir. 1988) was a court case between two video game manufacturers, where Data East claimed that their copyright in Karate Champ was infringed by World Karate Championship, a game published by Epyx. Data East released Karate Champ in arcades in 1984, and the game became a best-seller and pioneered the fighting game genre. The next year, Epyx published World Karate Championship for home computers, which sold 1.5 million copies. Data East sued Epyx, alleging that the game infringed on their copyright and trademark. The district court found that Epyx had infringed on Data East's copyright, but not their trademark, and ordered an injunction against distributing World Karate Championship.

Sterling v. Velsicol Chemical Corp., 855 F.2d 1188 (6th Cir. 1988), was an environmental lawsuit filed by citizens of Hardeman County, Tennessee, led by Steven Sterling, who sued Velsicol Chemical Corporation for contaminating their water supply through improper disposal of toxic chemicals.

Polk v. Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit 16, 853 F.2d 171 (3d Cir. 1988), is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided that a school district did not provide a free appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) because the student was not receiving meaningful educational benefit.

Midler v. Ford Motor Co., 849 F.2d 460 (9th Cir. 1988) is a United States Court of Appeals case in which Bette Midler sought remedy against Ford Motor Company for a series of commercials in the 1980s which used a Midler impersonator. The case caused people to ask if a unique feature, such as a voice, can distinguish someone or not; and if it can, must the impersonation of it be authorized?

Vault Corporation v Quaid Software Ltd. 847 F.2d 255 (5th Cir. 1988) is a case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that tested the extent of software copyright. The court held that making RAM copies as an essential step in utilizing software was permissible under §117 of the Copyright Act even if they are used for a purpose that the copyright holder did not intend. It also applied the "substantial noninfringing uses" test from Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. to hold that Quaid's software, which defeated Vault's copy protection mechanism, did not make Quaid liable for contributory infringement. It held that Quaid's software was not a derivative work of Vault's software, despite having approximately 30 characters of source code in common.

United States v. Moore, 846 F.2d 1163 (8th Cir. 1988), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit to uphold the conviction of James Vernell Moore for assault with a deadly weapon.

Hirabayashi v. United States, 828 F.2d 591 (9th Cir. 1987), is a case decided by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and recognized for both its historical and legal significance. The case is historically significant for vacating the World War II–era convictions of Japanese American civil rights leader Gordon Hirabayashi. Those convictions were affirmed in the Supreme Court's 1943 decision Hirabayashi v. United States. The case is legally significant for establishing the standard to determine when any federal court in the Ninth Circuit may issue a writ of coram nobis.

Smith v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County, 827 F.2d 684 (11th Cir. 1987), was a lawsuit in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the Mobile County Public School System could use textbooks which purportedly promoted "secular humanism", characterized by the complainants as a religion.

United States v. Pohlot, 827 F.2d 889 (3d Cir. 1987), is a criminal case that summarized diverse uses of the expression "diminished capacity".

Mozert v. Hawkins, 827 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1987), was a notable case involving First Amendment rights of religion in protesting required public school reading for students in Tennessee.

Salinger v. Random House, Inc., 811 F.2d 90 (2d Cir. 1987) is a United States case on the application of copyright law to unpublished works. In a case about author J. D. Salinger's unpublished letters, the Second Circuit held that the right of an author to control the way in which their work was first published took priority over the right of others to publish extracts or close paraphrases of the work under "fair use". In the case of unpublished letters, the decision was seen as favoring the individual's right to privacy over the public right to information. However, in response to concerns about the implications of this case on scholarship, Congress amended the Copyright Act in 1992 to explicitly allow for fair use in copying unpublished works, adding to 17 U.S.C.

Von Bulow v. Von Bulow, 811 F.2d 136 (2nd Cir. 1987), was a case appealed from a contempt ruling after a United States District Court rejected the claim of a reporter's privilege by Claus von Bulow and Andrea Reynolds. Reynolds, a paralegal, appealed a contempt ruling after she refused to submit an unpublished document for discovery. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the contempt order. The Court reasoned that a person who had gathered information for private use without the intent to gather the information as part of an investigation for a publication was not entitled to a reporter's privilege.

Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929 (4th Cir. 1986), is a court case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that although Wicca is a religion, it was not a violation of the First Amendment to deny a prisoner access to ritual objects.

Garcia-Mir v. Meese, 788 F.2d 1446 (11th Cir. 1986), was a decision by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the United States could indefinitely detain Cuban refugees who had arrived during the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

Alerding v. Ohio High School Athletic Association, 779 F.2d 315 (6th Cir. 1985) was a court case heard before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit which held that the right to participate in interscholastic sports is not a fundamental privilege protected by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the United States Constitution. In particular, the court held that the Ohio High School Athletic Association could prohibit private high school athletic programs from recruiting students who live in neighboring states.