Posts Tagged: "Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals"

Eleventh Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment on Cybersquatting Claims Brought by Owner of ‘European Wax Center’ Mark

On August 6, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a decision in Boigris v. EWC P&T, LLC in which the appellate court affirmed a ruling by the Southern District of Florida granting summary judgment to EWC, the owner of the nationwide European Wax Center chain of beauty salons, on cybersquatting claims filed against the owner of several GoDaddy domains that were registered in bad faith to profit from EWC’s stores. Although the majority found that the accused domain names and EWC’s registered trademarks were confusingly similar in sight, sound and meaning, the dissent raises interesting questions regarding the proper standard on confusing similarity at the summary judgment stage.

A Dubious Decision: Eleventh Circuit Finds Scraping of Data from a Public Website Can Constitute Theft of Trade Secrets (Part I)

Much has already been written in a relatively short period of time since the Eleventh Circuit decided Compulife Software, Inc. v. Newman, __ F.3d __, 2020 WL 2549505, (11th Cir. May 20, 2020). However, such commentaries have not addressed whether this decision is legally supportable and whether other circuits should follow this decision, which would provide a legal basis for website operators under certain circumstances to pursue unwarranted scraping of their websites. This is particularly important because the Supreme Court is currently considering whether to grant certiorari in a case involving whether website scraping is legal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Depending on the outcome of this matter, website operators may be extremely restricted to prevent scraping under that statute.

Eleventh Circuit Finds ENGINEERED TAX SERVICES Mark Inherently Distinctive

On May 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed a decision of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Engineered Tax Services, Inc., v. Scarpello Consulting, Inc. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Scarpello, asserting that no reasonable jury could find ENGINEERED TAX SERVICES to be a valid trademark due to a lack of distinctiveness. Engineered Tax Services (ETS) appealed to the Eleventh Circuit, which found that a reasonable jury could have found the mark to be inherently distinctive.

Eleventh Circuit Takes A Bite Out of Originality in Dentist Photographer Case

Ownership of a valid copyright requires that the work be independently created by the author and have some “minimal degree of creativity,” as required by Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., Inc. The Eleventh Circuit recently waded into this area of law in May of 2019 when it decided Pohl v. MH Sub I LLC. The question is: did they get it right? Dr. Mitchell Pohl is a dentist based in Florida who took before and after photographs of his patient’s teeth to show his efforts in cosmetic dentistry. Dr. Pohl personally took these photographs. After performing a reverse image search, Dr. Pohl determined that the defendant published certain images of Dr. Pohl’s patients without authorization. Dr. Pohl subsequently filed suit. The district court, in a decision on summary judgment riddled with puns about teeth and dentistry, determined that the images lacked creativity and originality to subsequently receive copyright protection.

Other Barks & Bites, Friday, August 9: IP Litigation Getting More Expensive, WIPO Launches .CN Dispute Resolution Service

This week in Other Barks & Bites: WIPO launches dispute resolution service for Chinese domain names; Morrison Foerster report shows that IP litigation costs are increasing as the number of IP matters being handled are decreasing; the Federal Circuit issues precedential decisions upholding claim construction findings at the ITC and overturning a district court jury verdict finding invalidity for being unsupported by record evidence; the Second Circuit clarifies when profits can be awarded in trademark cases; Uber IP transfer creates $6.1 billion tax break for the company; major football associations call for crackdown on Saudi piracy service; OPPO inks patent agreements with Intel and Ericsson; and Broadcom acquires Symantec’s enterprise security business.