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Paul McCartney Seeks to Reclaim Copyright Interests in Famous Beatles Songs

Paul McCartney recently filed suit in United States District Court, to reclaim ownership rights of some of the Beatles’ most famous early songs. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that Mr. McCartney is entitled to reclaim copyright interest in several early songs under the termination provisions of the Copyright Act. Under this provision of the Copyright Act, authors who assigned their copyright interests to artistic works before a 1978 revision of the law, are allowed to reclaim the rights after 56 years have passed. Mr. McCartney has been serving advance notice of his intent to reclaim the rights as required by law.

Unlike most countries, the United States copyright law provides musicians and songwriters an opportunity to regain ownership of works that they transferred to outside entities, such as record labels and music publishers after a certain period of time. For many musicians, especially those who had hits decades ago, copyright termination has become a powerful way to regain the rights in their works and to gain financial leverage with their record companies and music publishers.

Michael Jackson purchased the rights to various Beatles songs in 1985 and later formed Sony/ATV as a joint venture with Sony. Last year, Sony bought out the share of Mr. Jackson’s estate for $750 million.

One potential issue in the case is a recent ruling by a British court that found the band Duran Duran could not reclaim rights to its songs because the band’s original publishing agreements were subject to English law. Mr. McCartney’s suit notes, he and John Lennon signed a series of publishing contracts in Britain beginning in 1962, assigning his ownership rights to some of the popular early Beatles songs. As such, Sony/ATV have begun to suggest that the copyright rule may not apply to Mr. McCartney’s songs.

John Cyril Malloy III, Recognized by Martindale-Hubbell for the Distinction of 20 Years as an AV Rated Attorney

The Firm is proud to join partner, John Cyril Malloy III, in celebrating his 20th anniversary as an AV-Preeminent rated lawyer by the Martindale-Hubbell Legal Directly, the gold standard in attorney ratings, by peer review and by members of the judiciary, indicating the highest level of professional excellence for legal knowledge, communication skills, and ethical standards. 

Claim Construction in UltimatePointer v. Nintendo

Last year, the Federal Circuit decided UltimatePointer, LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. UltimatePointer brought a patent Infringment suit against Nintendo for its Wii console which uses indirect-pointing remote control devices. The district court ruled for Nintendo on summary judgment concluding that direct-pointing devices, and not indirect-pointing devices, were within the scope of the claims of UltimatePointer’s patent. The Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling, reasoning that the specification of the patent repeatedly emphasize that the invention is directed to a direct-pointing device and that there are disadvantages with indirect pointing devices.  This decision underscores the importance of the specification on how claims are construed. As seen in UltimatePointer, LLC v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., a court may limit the scope of a claim based on the content of the specification.    

Supreme Court Rules Design Patent Damages Can Be Limited to “Components” of Products

The latest chapter in the Apple v. Samsung litigation, previously blogged about here, involves a determination by the Supreme Court of the United States that damages for design patent infringement can be calculated based on only a component of a product, rather than the entire product, if only that component is found to infringe. This is significant because Apple’s $400M damages award was based on Samsung’s total profit for sales of the infringing phones. However, Apple’s design patent only covered certain features of Samsung’s phones, and according to the language of the patent statute, as Samsung argued, it should only have to pay damages on the infringing components, not the entire product. 

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