Federal Reporter, Third Series

Lizardtech, Inc. v. Earth Res. Mapping, Inc., 424 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2005), LizardTech sued Earth Resource Mapping (ERM) for patent infringement related to taking discrete wavelet transforms (DWTs) in their ER Mapper program. The court ruled in ERM's favor, finding that some of the claims were invalid, and that ER Mapper did not infringe the other claims. The case has been viewed as an example of the "written description doctrine" which courts may use when applying 35 U.S.C. § 112 to decide the validity of patent claims.

Arizona Cartridge Remanufacturers Association Inc. v. Lexmark International Inc., 421 F.3d 981 (9th Cir. 2005) was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit which ruled that an End User License Agreement on a physical box can be binding on consumers who signal their acceptance of the license agreement by opening the box.

Lamparello v. Falwell, 420 F.3d 309 (4th Cir. 2005), was a legal case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit concerning allegations of cybersquatting and trademark infringement. The dispute centered on the right to use the domain name fallwell.com, and provides discussion on cybersquatting as it applies to criticism of a trademark. In 1999, Christopher Lamparello created a website to respond to and criticize the anti-homosexual statements by the American Christian evangelical preacher Jerry Falwell. Lamparello's website was located at fallwell.com (note the misspelling).

Pro-Football, Inc. v. Harjo, 415 F.3d 44 (D.C. Cir. 2005), is a case in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia considered the decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to cancel the registration of the Washington Redskins football team, based on the claim that the name was disparaging to Native Americans. The Court of Appeals did not actually reach the merits of the TTAB's decision; it sent the case back to the trial court for consideration of a procedural issue.

Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005), was a case decided by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit en banc, that clarified the hierarchy of evidentiary sources usable for claim construction in patent law.

Muth v. Frank, 412 F.3d 808 (7th Cir. 2005), was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the denial to an individual of a writ of habeas corpus for violation of Wisconsin's laws criminalizing incest was not unconstitutional. The petitioners relied heavily on the Supreme Court's ruling in Lawrence v. Texas invalidating anti-sodomy laws two years prior, which the Seventh Circuit rejected.

Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005), is a 2005 court case that was important in defining American copyright law for recorded music. The case centered on the 1990 N.W.A. track "100 Miles and Runnin'", which contains a manipulated two-second sample of the 1975 Funkadelic track "Get Off Your Ass and Jam". The sample was implemented without Funkadelic's permission and with no compensation paid to Bridgeport Music, which claimed to own the rights to Funkadelic's music. Bridgeport brought the issue before a federal judge, who ruled that the incident was not in violation of copyright law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the decision and ruled that the sampling was in violation of copyright law.

In Campbell v. General Dynamics Gov't Sys. Corp., 407 F.3d 546 (1st Cir. 2005), the First Circuit had to consider the enforceability of a mandatory arbitration agreement, contained in a dispute resolution policy linked to an e-mailed company-wide announcement, insofar as it applies to employment discrimination claims brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Under the Court's analysis, the question turned on whether the employer provided minimally sufficient notice of the contractual nature of the e-mailed policy and of the concomitant waiver of an employee's right to access a judicial forum.

Bosley Medical Institute v. Kremer, 403 F.3d 672, is a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, reversed and remanded the rulings of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, holding that defendant, Michael Kremer, could not be held liable for trademark infringement or dilution for his use of the Bosley Medical Group's name in creating a website that was critical of the company's business practices.

Bigby v. Dretke 402 F.3d 551 (5th Cir. 2005), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit heard a case appealed from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas (trial court) on the issue of the instructions given to a jury in death penalty sentencing. The decision took into account the recent United States Supreme Court decisions concerning the relevance of mitigating evidence in sentencing, as in Penry v. Lynaugh.

Palm Bay Imports, Inc. v. Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Maison Fondee en 1772, 396 F.3d 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2005), was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarifying the doctrine of foreign equivalents. The court explained that there is a threshold limitation to applying the doctrine of foreign equivalents. The doctrine "should be applied only when it is likely that the ordinary American purchaser would 'stop and translate [the word] into its English equivalent.'"

McCorvey v. Hill, 385 F.3d 846 (5th Cir. 2004), was a case in which the original litigant in Roe v. Wade, Norma McCorvey, also known as 'Jane Roe', requested the overturning of Roe. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that McCorvey could not do this; the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on February 22, 2005, rendering the opinion of the Fifth Circuit final. The opinion for the Fifth Circuit was written by Judge Edith Jones, who also filed a concurrence to her opinion for the court.

Grosso v. Miramax Film Corp., 383 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2004), was an entertainment law case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a screenwriter's claim for breach of implied contract was not preempted by United States federal copyright law, because the screenwriter's claim alleged an extra element that transformed the action from one arising under the ambit of the federal copyright statute to one sounding in contract.

The Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Skylink Technologies, Inc., 381 F.3d 1178 (Fed. Cir. 2004) is a legal case heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concerning the anti-trafficking provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2), in the context of two competing universal garage door opener companies. It discusses the statutory structure and legislative history of the DMCA to help clarify the intent of the anti-circumvention provisions and decide who holds the burden of proof.

United States v. Gementera, 379 F.3d 596 (9th Cir. 2004), was a case decided by the 9th Circuit that held that a judge had the statutory authority to impose a sentence for mail theft that involved public reintegrative shaming because the punishment was reasonably related to the statutory objective of rehabilitation. The punishment required that the thief wear a sandwich board sign stating, "I stole mail; this is my punishment", while standing for eight hours outside of a San Francisco postal facility.

United States v. Kincade, 379 F.3d 813 (9th Cir. 2004) (en banc), is a case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dealing with the constitutionality of collecting and retaining DNA from parolees.

United States v. Councilman, 373 F.3d 197 (1st Cir. 2004), reversed en banc, 418 F.3d 67 (1st Cir. 2005), was a criminal case involving interception of e-mail while in temporary storage en route to its final destination. Earlier rulings in the case had raised concerns about the privacy of e-mail and the effectiveness of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA).

CoStar Group, Inc. v. LoopNet, Inc., 373 F.3d 544 (4th Cir. 2004), is a United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit decision about whether LoopNet should be held directly liable for CoStar Group’s copyrighted photographs posted by LoopNet’s subscribers on LoopNet’s website. The majority of the court ruled that since LoopNet was an Internet service provider ("ISP") that automatically and passively stored material at the direction of users, LoopNet did not copy the material in violation of the Copyright Act. The majority of the court also held that the screening process by a LoopNet employee before the images were stored and displayed did not alter the passivity of LoopNet.

Hangarter v. Provident Insurance Company, 373 F.3d 998 (9th Cir. 2004), (UnumProvident, now referred to as Unum or Unum Group), is a landmark decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on the issue of disability bad faith insurance law. Because California's bad faith insurance law is often referred to in many states as a model nationwide, the 9th Circuit's decision has a persuasive impact throughout the country.

Archuleta v. Hedrick, 365 F.3d 644 (8th Cir. 2004) was a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in October 2002, appealing the dismissal of a case brought by defendant Benjamin Archuleta. Archuleta had been found not guilty by reason of insanity of assault and subsequently ordered to be confined in a prison mental hospital by the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri after his successful insanity defense, as he was evaluated by a psychiatrist as dangerous. His appeal challenged this confinement and "forced treatment", requested a withdrawal of his original insanity defense, and sought his unconditional release from custody.

NXIVM Corp. v. The Ross Institute, 364 F.3d 471 (2d Cir. 2004), was a United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision that held that the defendant's critical analysis of material obtained in bad faith, i.e., in violation of a non-disclosure agreement, was fair use since the secondary use was transformative as criticism and was not a potential replacement for the original on the market, regardless of how the material was obtained. NXIVM, pronounced NEX-ee-um, was a sex trafficking cult that claimed to offer a life-improvement seminar called the "Executive Success Program" (ESP). At the time of the court case, NXIVM's status as a sex trafficking cult was not widely known to the public, and would not be until key leaders were indicted in 2018.

The Doe v. Groody, 361 F.3d 232 (3d Cir. 2004) lawsuit concerned a strip-search of a 10-year-old girl and her mother despite the fact that neither were criminal suspects nor named in any search warrant. In applying for a search warrant, officers requested the right to search whoever was in the house and were refused that request.

Lofton v. Secretary of the Department of Children & Family Services, is a 2004 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upholding Florida's ban of adoption of children by homosexual persons as enforced by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

Register.com v. Verio, 356 F.3d 393 (2d Cir. 2004), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that addressed several issues relevant to Internet law, such as browse wrap licensing, trespass to servers, and enforcement of the policies of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The decision upheld the ruling of a lower court which prevented a provider of web development services from automatically harvesting publicly available registration data from a domain name registrar's servers for advertising purposes.

Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Netscape Communications Corp., 354 F.3d 1020 (9th Cir. 2004) was a case regarding trademark infringement and trademark dilution decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ruling addressed unauthorized use of trademarked terms when using web search data to determine the recipients of banner ads.

United States v. Stewart, 348 F.3d 1132 (9th Cir. 2003) and 451 F.3d 1071 (9th Cir. 2006), is a Ninth Circuit case involving a challenge to the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found against the defendant, ruling that possession of homemade machine guns can be constitutionally regulated by the United States Congress under the Commerce Clause.

Williams v. Price, 343 F.3d 223 (3d Cir. 2003), was a 2003 legal case decided in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The appellant was Ronald A. Williams, an African American prisoner; the suit was brought against James Price, the prison superintendent of State Correctional Institution – Pittsburgh, and D. Michael Fisher, the then-Attorney General of Pennsylvania.

Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., 339 F.3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2003), is an American legal case dealing with the protection provided an internet service provider under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) United States Code Title 47 section 230(c)(1). It is also known as the Star Trek actress case as the plaintiff, Chase Masterson – whose legal name is Christianne Carafano – is well known for having appeared on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The case demonstrated that the use of an online form with some multiple choice selections does not override the protections against liability for the actions of users or anonymous members of a Web-based service.

Kremen v. Cohen, 337 F.3d 1024 (9th Cir., 2003), was a court ruling at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The ruling was an important early cyberlaw precedent, determining that an Internet domain name is an item of property that can be bought, sold, and stolen.

In re Aimster Copyright Litigation, 334 F.3d 643 (7th Cir. 2003), was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit addressed copyright infringement claims brought against Aimster, concluding that a preliminary injunction against the file-sharing service was appropriate because the copyright owners were likely to prevail on their claims of contributory infringement, and that the services could have non-infringing users was insufficient reason to reverse the district court's decision. The appellate court also noted that the defendant could have limited the quantity of the infringements if it had eliminated an encryption system feature, and if it had monitored the use of its systems.

Parks v. LaFace Records, 329 F.3d 437 (6th Cir. 2003), was a lawsuit filed by attorney Gregory J Reed in March 1999 on Rosa Parks' behalf against American hip-hop duo Outkast and LaFace Records, claiming that the group had illegally used Parks' name without her permission for the song "Rosa Parks", the most successful radio single of Outkast's 1998 album Aquemini. The song's chorus, which Parks' legal defense felt was disrespectful to her, is as follows: "Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus / Do you want to bump and slump with us / We the type of people make the club get crunk." The case was dismissed in November 1999 by U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Kloka Hackett.

LePage's Inc. v. 3M, 324 F.3d 141 (3d Cir. 2003), is a 2003 en banc decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upholding a jury verdict against bundling. Bundling is the setting of the total price of a purchase of several products or services over a period from one seller at a lower level than the sum of the prices of the products or services purchased separately from several sellers over the period. Typically, one of the bundled items (the "primary product" or "monopoly product" or "non-contestable product") is available only from the seller engaging in the bundling, while the other item or items (the "secondary product" or "contestable product") can be obtained from several sellers.

Doe v. Bush, 323 F.3d 133 (1st Cir. 2003), was a court case challenging the constitutionality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The case was dismissed, since the plaintiffs failed "to raise a sufficiently clear constitutional issue." The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 was challenged by "a coalition of U.S. soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and members of Congress" prior to the invasion to stop it from happening. They claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be illegal. Judge Lynch wrote of their argument, "They base this argument on two theories. They argue that Congress and the President are in collision -- that the President is about to act in violation of the October Resolution.

Lassonde v. Pleasanton Unified School District is a case about First Amendment freedoms and the separation between church and state. A student of Amador Valley High School claimed a violation of his first amendment right of speech when parts of his salutatorian speech were censored. The case went up to the US Court of Appeals. This case is an important case in educational law concerning religious expression on school campuses.

Bowers v. Baystate Technologies, 320 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2003), was a U.S. Court of Appeals Federal Circuit case involving Harold L. Bowers (doing business as HLB Technology) and Baystate Technologies over patent infringement, copyright infringement, and breach of contract. In the case, the court found that Baystate had breached their contract by reverse engineering Bower's program, something expressly prohibited by a shrink wrap license that Baystate entered into upon purchasing a copy of Bower's software. This case is notable for establishing that license agreements can preempt fair use rights as well as expand the rights of copyright holders beyond those codified in US federal law.

Taubman Co. v. Webfeats, 319 F.3d 770, 778 (6th Cir. 2003) was a United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit case concerning trademark infringement under the Lanham Act due to the unauthorized use of a domain name and website. The appellate court held that Taubman's trademark infringement claim did not have a likelihood of success and that the use of the company's mark in the domain name was an exhibition of free speech.

Toys "R" Us, Inc. v. Step Two, S.A was a case in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit which set precedent in this circuit for its application of the "Zippo" test in determining the validity of a claim to personal jurisdiction based on the interactivity of a website. This case was presented as an appeal to a ruling from the District Court which denied Toys "R" Us' request for jurisdictional discovery and dismissed the case over lack of personal jurisdiction. The appellate court held that the denial of jurisdictional discovery was in error, and remanded the case to be reconsidered once this discovery took place.

Green v. America Online, Inc., 318 F.3d 465 (2003), was a case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, concerning the protections granted to Internet service providers from legal liability for tort offenses committed by their users.

Doe v. Unocal, 395 F.3d 932 (9th Cir. 2002), opinion vacated and rehearing en banc granted, 395 F.3d 978 (9th Cir. 2003), was a lawsuit filed against Unocal for alleged human rights violations.

Schism v. United States, 316 F.3d 1259 (Fed. Cir. 2002), was a case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, on appeal from the United States Court of Federal Claims arising out of a 1998 lawsuit brought against the United States in an attempt to ensure that military benefits promised in exchange for military service would continue. Ultimately, the Federal Circuit heard the case en banc and denied the benefits requested by the plaintiffs, leaving it to Congress to fashion a solution. It has been described as "[o]ne of the most important cases the court decided" in the area of military pay and benefits.

Arakaki v. Hawaii, 314 F.3d 1091 (9th Cir. 2002), was a lawsuit challenging the requirement that candidates for election to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board of trustees be Native Hawaiians. In 2000, after being barred from applying for nomination papers in June because he was not of Hawaiian ancestry, Kenneth R. Conklin was one of 13 plaintiffs in a controversial lawsuit Arakaki v. State of Hawai'i challenging the requirement that candidates for election to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs board of trustees be Hawaiian. The suit, argued by attorneys H. William Burgess and co-counsel Patrick W. Hanifin, claimed the restriction violated the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifteenth Amendment, and the Voting Rights Act. In August, U.S.

Silveira v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052 (9th Cir. 2002), was a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution did not guarantee individuals the right to bear arms. The case involved a challenge to the constitutionality of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 (AWCA), California legislation that banned the manufacture, sale, transportation, or importation of specified semi-automatic firearms. The plaintiffs alleged that various provisions of the AWCA infringed upon their individual constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt wrote the opinion of the three-member panel.

Conant v. Walters, 309 F.3d 629 (9th Cir. 2002), is a legal case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed the right of physicians to recommend medical marijuana. The Court of Appeals affirmed the earlier decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, which was filed under the caption Conant v. McCaffrey. Though the case involved chronic patients with untreatable diseases, the decision does not name these conditions as a prerequisite, nor does it limit drugs which may or may not be illegal.

Specht v. Netscape, 306 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2002), is a ruling at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit regarding the enforceability of clickwrap licenses under contract law. The court held that merely clicking on a download button does not show consent with license terms, if those terms were not conspicuous and if it was not explicit to the consumer that clicking meant agreeing to the license.

Center for Reproductive Law & Policy v. Bush, 304 F.3d 183 (2d Cir. 2002), was a Court of Appeals case in the US. The case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld the Bush Administration's re-imposition of the Mexico City Policy. The policy stated that "the United States will no longer contribute to separate nongovernmental organizations which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations."

Smith v. Pilots Union, 296 F.3d 380 (5th Cir. 2002), is a court case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that although third officer aboard an oceangoing cargo vessel was a supervisor, the six-month period of limitations of § 10(b) of the National Labor Relations Act still applies to Smith's suit against the union whether or not he was a supervisor.

Netscape Communications Corp. v. Konrad, 295 F.3d 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2002), was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. It affirmed that public use or commercialization of an invention more than one year before the filing date will cost the inventor his patent rights (see also 35 U.S.C. § 100-105). The inventor in this case was Allan M. Konrad, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employee who devised and implemented a method for accessing and searching data objects stored on a remote computer (U.S. patents 5,544,320; 5,696,901; 5,974,444). Netscape moved to invalidate Konrad's patents in U.S. district court immediately after Konrad filed a patent infringement suit against Netscape customers.

Pappas v. Giuliani, 290 F.3d 143 (2002), was a case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution was not violated when a police officer was fired for mailing out racially offensive political materials from his home.

Planned Parenthood of Columbia/Willamette v. American Coalition of Life Activists, 290 F.3d 1058 (2002), was a freedom of speech case of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit over statements by anti-abortion activists who publicized personal information about specific abortion doctors, and indirectly suggested the possibility of violence against those individuals. The Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon that the speech was a true threat that is not protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Fraser v. Major League Soccer, 284 F.3d 47 (1st Cir. 2002), was an antitrust suit filed by eight Major League Soccer players against MLS, the league's investors, and the United States Soccer Federation. The Court of Appeals found that Major League Soccer was a single entity and therefore legally incapable of conspiring with itself.