The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has temporarily reinstated Shira Perlmutter, the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, pending further legal proceedings. Ms. Perlmutter was terminated by President Trump on May 10, 2025. She sued the President and other officials in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but was denied a temporary injunction to prohibit her removal. On September 10th, the appellate court reversed and ordered Ms. Perlmutter’s reinstatement. The U.S. Copyright Office is a division of the Library of Congress and, as such, the dispute about the President’s authority hinges on the status of the Library of Congress as part of the legislative branch. The President does have authority to appoint the Librarian of Congress, subject to advice and consent from the Senate, but the Librarian appoints the Register of Copyrights, not the President. The case will be returned to the trial court for further proceedings on the merits of the original suit. This is a follow-up to an IP Blog post dated May 12, 2025.

About the Author: John Cyril Malloy, III is a Miami-based copyright attorney with Florida Bar board certification in intellectual property law and more than 3 decades of experience assisting authors, corporations, and universities across Florida with U.S. copyright applications, copyright ownership issues, and copyright infringement litigation. He meets with clients in the firm’s Boca Raton, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville offices, as well as his main office in Miami.