Welcome back to Legal Geek. This week, we update the result of when Spiderman and patent royalties went to the Supreme Court, and also look at an interesting title conferred on one Texas judge this month.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp48
Back in December, this segment described the Supreme Court case from this term focusing on the patent law doctrine of banning any royalty payments past the 20 year expiration of a patent as compared to private contractual rights. Specifically, a Spiderman web shooter toy creator was trying to enforce royalties against a third party Marvel when those royalties were not explicitly tied to the patent Marvel bought from him and the contract had no set termination date.
A couple weeks ago, the Supreme Court upheld the so called Brulotte Doctrine, maintaining the rigid prohibition of royalty payments beyond 20 years in the patent context. Considering this doctrine is 50 years old and the contract at issue was related to a patent transfer, perhaps we should not be surprised. However, I had guessed incorrectly in December that this case was taken up by the Court to trim away a bit of the overreaching of patent law into private contractual agreements, so the result is a bit of a surprise at least to me.
Of course, for the many comic nerds among us, the important thing is Marvel wins. Web shooter toys for everyone!
Also, the majority opinion written by Justice Kagan sneaks in a few Spiderman and superhero quotes, which just shows at least some justices have a sense of humor. This includes a statement that "Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but only for a limited time." She also notes that with 50 year old precedents, the authority to overrule such well-established precedents is an authority that should be exercised sparingly because...yes indeed, "with great power there must also come great responsibility." Well done, Justice Kagan.
Finally, a quick news item from early June was worth mentioning as well if you missed it. A Texas Supreme Court judge who is very active on twitter has been deemed the Official Texas Tweeter Laureate by the Texas House of Representatives. His mastery of social media is likely key to winning re-election in a state like Texas that elects judges, and it is refreshing to see a judge not getting into trouble for tweets as is usually the case when these two topics mix. Although the title is meaningless, let's hope for more Tweeter Laureates among the judiciary so we can all have a better understanding of the men and women behind the robes.
Bottom Line: Although other cases will always receive more public attention than small patent law decisions, it is fun to see that even the Supreme Court can take itself a bit lightly when dealing with fun topics like Spiderman toys.
----------------------------------
Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy
No comments:
Post a Comment