[LINK] win for CSIRO patent claim, loss for Morpheus file-sharing

[Jan Whitaker]

 From Slattery's Watch, 20/11/2006

A US Federal Court has granted summary judgement in favour of the 
validity of a US patent granted to CSIRO for its Wireless Local Area 
Network technology in 1996. The judge also granted summary judgment 
that the defendant, Buffalo Technology, had infringed CSIRO's patent. 
CSIRO Chief Executive Geoff Garrett said that he hoped that the court 
would determine a reasonable royalty rate shortly.

and

US District Court rules against file-sharing software 'Morpheus'

A coalition of Hollywood movie studios, record companies and music 
publishers have been successful in a copyright infringement action 
against StreamCast Networks, the distributor of online file-sharing 
program Morpheus.

A US District Court found that StreamCast had encouraged computer 
users to share music, movies and other copyrighted works without 
permission from the owners.  The court applied the US Supreme Court 
ruling in MGM v Grokster where it was held that a company that 
actively promotes, or bases its business on piracy, can be held 
liable for its customers' copyright infringements.

The judge found that there was overwhelming evidence that StreamCast 
had deliberately induced copyright infringement and consequently 
granted the entertainment companies' application for summary 
judgement. The decision gives clarity to other file-sharing companies 
(most notably LimeWire), who now have a concrete example of what 
constitutes inducing infringement.

Interestingly, the judge denied StreamCast's request to prove the 
entertainment companies misused their copyright, finding that any 
collusion by the companies to deny StreamCast licenses might violate 
anti-trust law, but it would not be a misuse of copyright.  However, 
LimeWire's counterclaims, being heard in a New York federal court, 
are largely based on federal anti-trust statutes and New York 
business practices laws, not copyright law.

This article was written by Georgia Foster, Minter Ellison, Sydney. 
For questions about legal issues, contact Keith Robinson - 
Keith.Robinson at minterellison.com.

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Jan Whitaker
JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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