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This month the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2019 (“CASE Act”) was introduced in the Senate (S. 1273) by a number of Senators including Dick Durbin of Illinois and in the House (H.R. 2426) by Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Doug Collins. The CASE Act seeks to provide individual creators and small businesses, who create the vast majority of creative works but are the least able to afford costly intellectual property litigation, with an affordable forum to adjudicate small claims against copyright infringers. The CASE Act would create the equivalent of a small claims court within the United States Copyright Office. The bill (referred to informally as “the small claims bill”) closely track recommendations made by the Copyright Office in its comprehensive 2013 study on the subject. The CASE Act has received sizeable bipartisan support in both houses.

Important elements of the CASE Act include provisions that would:

  • Cap damages at $30,000 per proceeding (and preclude awards of injunctive relief);
  • Create a Copyright Claim Board (“CCB”) comprised of three judges with copyright law and alternative dispute resolution experience;
  • Make participation voluntary by allowing an alleged infringer to opt out of the small claims process (which would require the copyright owner to file an infringement claim in federal court);
  • Allow the entire proceeding to be conducted on paper, obviating in-person appearances;
  • Require parties to pay their own attorney fees, if any;
  • Discourage bad faith claims, counterclaims, and defenses by (1) permitting fee shifting awards to be entered against bad actors, and (2) barring “repeat offenders” from filing claims before the CCB for a period of time.

Continue reading ›

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A small producer of musical instruments sued Guitar Center, alleging that Guitar Center violated its trademark on the name for a line of woodwind instruments. The plaintiff made a mistake in its suit, however, and named several subsidiary corporations of Guitar Center as additional defendants. After a trial, a jury was asked to determine whether each of the organizations were liable for infringing conduct. The jury, however, found that only the sales that occurred at Guitar Center branded stores were infringing, which amounted to a tiny fraction of the total sales across Guitar Center and all of its subsidiary brands. A district court found that the judgment could not be amended, and the appellate court agreed. The appellate court stated that the judgment was rationally supported by the evidence at trial and the plaintiff gave it no reason to think that the verdict would have been different if it had correctly identified the other stores as subsidiaries of Guitar Center.

Guitar Center makes and sells musical instruments. In 2010, it created a new brand of woodwind and brass instruments produced by Eastman, “Ventus.” Barrington Music Products owns the trademark “Vento,” which it uses in relation to the instruments it sells. Barrington began using the mark in commerce in May of 2009 and achieved gross sales just shy of $700,000. Barrington filed for registration of its “Vento” trademark in January 2010. In March 2011, Guitar Center began selling flutes, trumpets, alto saxophones, tenor saxophones, and clarinets using the “Ventus” mark, with gross sales totaling about $5 million.

Barrington eventually sued Music & Arts Centers, Guitar Center Stores, Inc., Woodwind & Brasswind Inc., and Eastman Music Company for trademark infringement. Evidence at trial demonstrated that the bulk of sales occurred at Music & Arts Centers, totaling $4.9 million, with only $3,228 in sales coming from Guitar Center. The jury found that only the sales made by Guitar Center stores were infringing and awarded Barrington the total amount of those sales — $3,228. After the judgment was entered, Barrington filed a motion pursuant to Rule 59(e) asking the district court to amend the damages award. Barrington had discovered that the only distinct corporate entity was Guitar Centers, Inc., while Music & Arts and Woodwind were each divisions of Guitar Center. Barrington moved to amend the judgment to include the total volume of all sales. The district court denied the motion, and Barrington appealed. Continue reading ›

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Recently, a unanimous U.S. Third Circuit appellate court upheld payroll company Automatic Data Processing’s (“ADP”) non-compete agreements but remanded the case to the district court for tailoring. The federal appeals court reversed a decision by the district court which had found the covenants not to compete to be unenforceable. In reversing the lower court, the Third Circuit found that the non-compete agreements were necessary to protect ADP’s client relationships and goodwill, interests that New Jersey courts, “consistently recognize as legitimate.”

According to the Third Circuit’s opinion, ADP requires certain high-performing employees to sign non-compete agreements and similar pledges in order to qualify for stock option awards. These restrictive covenants prohibit employees who received stock options from working for a competitor for one year and from soliciting ADP’s current or prospective clients for two years after leaving ADP. Two former ADP employees challenged ADP’s practice, alleging that the restrictive covenants were more onerous than they needed to be. The Third Circuit found that the solution in such circumstances is to amend, or “blue pencil” the non-compete agreements, not find them entirely unenforceable. Continue reading ›

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A class action lawsuit recently filed in a federal court in Washington accuses Getty Images, Inc. (“Getty”) of allegedly duping customers into paying for fictitious copyright licenses for images in the public domain that can be used freely.

The plaintiff in the case, Texas digital marketing company CixxFive Concepts LLC, claims that it was one of the victim’s of Getty’s wrongful conduct and alleges that Getty’s actions violated the RICO Act and state consumer protection laws. The wrongful conduct, according to the complaint, was not merely charging for the public domain images but rather deceiving customers into believing they needed to buy licenses for access to those images and purporting to restrict the use of those public domain images. The complaint concedes that “charging for public domain images is not illegal by itself,” but goes on to allege that “Getty’s and/or Getty US’s conduct goes much further than this… Using a number of different deceptive techniques, Getty and/or Getty US misleads its customers and potential customers into believing that it or one of its third-party contributors owns the copyright to all of the images available on its website, and that a license from Getty and/or Getty US is required to use all of the images on its website [when] [i]n truth, anyone is free to use public domain images, without restriction, and by definition in a non-exclusive manner, without paying Getty and/or Getty US or anyone else a penny.”

The complaint goes on to allege that “Getty and/or Getty US purport to restrict the use of the public domain images to a limited time, place, and/or purpose, and purport to guarantee exclusivity in the use of public domain images,” and that Getty’s license agreement currently “prohibits the use of licensed public domain works in on-demand products, such as ‘postcards, mugs, t-shirts, calendars, posters, screensavers or wallpapers,’ or in electronic templates, such as ‘website templates, business card templates, electronic greeting card templates, and brochure design templates.’” This conduct, the complaint alleges “deceptively purports to restrict the licensee’s preexisting right to free and unfettered use of public domain images.”

To add insult to injury, the complaint also alleges that Getty (through a company License Compliance Services, Inc. (“LCS”) which the complaint alleges Getty owns or controls) regularly sends copyright infringement letters to businesses using public domain images online “accusing them of infringing copyrights in public domain images.” The complaint gives an example alleging that “LCS sent a letter to Carol Highsmith, the noted American photographer who has donated tens of thousands of images to the Library of Congress, accusing her nonprofit foundation of copyright infringement for using one of her own public domain images.”

The lawsuit seeks to represent all licensees who have paid Getty for public domain images and seeks to recover treble damages, costs and attorney’s fees as well as an injunctive relief preventing Getty from “wielding a false claim of ownership of over intellectual property that is rightfully in the public domain.”

A copy of the complaint against Getty can be obtained here. Continue reading ›

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No withstanding allegations of majority shareholder oppression, the Seventh Circuit rejected those arguments paying deference to the business judgment rule because of the Indiana Legislature’s directive to give officers and directors a wide berth for their business decisions.  The Court observed:

 “Indiana has statutorily implemented a strongly pro-management version of the business judgment rule,” G & N Aircraft, Inc. v. Boehm, 743 N.E.2d 227, 238 (Ind. 2001)— the rule that creates “a presumption that directors making a business decision, not involving self-interest, act on an informed basis, in good faith, and in the honest belief that their actions are in the corporation’s best interest.” Grobow v. Perot, 539 A.2d 180, 187 (Del. 1988), overruled on other grounds in Brehm v. Eisner, 746 A.2d 244 (Del. 2000).

You can listen to the oral argument before the court here:

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The Board of Forensic Document Examiners defamation sued for libel claiming it suffered harm to its reputation due to an article that appeared in a journal published by the American Bar Association. The trial court granted the defendants motions to dismiss the action, finding that article didn’t sufficiently identify the Board or its members as the targets of the criticism and if it had done so, it would still be only the opinion of the author and therefore non-action as a libel case.  You can listen to the oral argument below:

You can read the final decision of the 7th Circuit here. Continue reading ›

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download-300x150download-1-300x150Super Lawyers named Chicago and Oak Brook defamation libel and slander attorney Peter Lubin a Super Lawyer in the Categories of Class Action, Business Litigation, and Consumer Rights Litigation. Patrick Austermuehle of the Firm was named a Rising Star again and has a great deal of experience as a Chicago Defamation Libel and Slander Attorney.  Peter Lubin and Patrick Austermuehle have achieved this honor for many years which is only given to 5% of Illinois’ attorneys each year.  You can review their record of accomplishment here. You can look at reviews by the clients here.

Lubin Austermuehle’s Oak Brook and Chicago business trial lawyers have over thirty years experience in litigating defamation, breach of fiduciary duty and shareholder oppression lawsuits.  Our Chicago non-compete agreement and trade secret theft attorneys prosecute and defend many types of unfair business practices and emergency business lawsuits involving injunctions, and TROS, covenant not to compete, franchise, distributor and dealer wrongful termination and trade secret lawsuits and many different kinds of business disputes involving shareholders, partnerships, closely held businesses and employee breaches of fiduciary duty. We also assist businesses and business owners who are victims of fraud.



Lubin Austermuehle’s Wheaton and Waukegan business litigation attorneys have more than two and half decades of experience helping business clients unravel the complexities of Illinois and out-of-state business laws. Our Chicago business, commercial, class-action, and consumer litigation lawyers represent individuals, family businesses and enterprises of all sizes in a variety of legal disputes, including disputes among partners and shareholders as well as lawsuits between businesses and consumer rights, auto fraud, and wage claim individual and class action cases. In every case, our goal is to resolve disputes as quickly and successfully as possible, helping business clients protect their investments and get back to business as usual. From offices in Oak Brook, near Schaumburg and Orland Park, we serve clients throughout Illinois and the Midwest.

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The glass ceiling continues to prove itself to be more shatterproof than many women suspected. Most of the time, just when a woman thinks she’s broken through – or is about to breakthrough – all she finds are more roadblocks. This allegedly turned out to be the case for Nancy Saltzman after she joined ExlService Holdings in 2014 as the firm’s general counsel. As an attorney with twenty years of experience under her belt, Saltzman was the most senior female executive when she joined the publicly traded consulting firm. But even with Saltzman on the executive team, the firm’s leadership consisted primarily of men.

Saltzman said she took her role as part of the company’s leadership very seriously, knowing other women looked up to her as a role model and an example of what women could achieve, both in the company and in the world at large. But the rest of the firm’s leadership allegedly saw Saltzman’s position on the team as a challenge that needed to be squashed.

In a recent discrimination lawsuit filed against Exl, Saltzman alleges Rohit Kapoor, the firm’s CEO, blocked her from opportunities to advance her career, subjected her to more scrutiny than her male peers, and micromanaged her to a much greater extent than her male colleagues. For example, Kapoor allegedly denied her travel request for a work trip in which every other member of the executive team traveled abroad to meet with clients. Kapoor then allegedly criticized Saltzman for not spending enough time with clients. Continue reading ›

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