Happy Birthday

Chief Judge George King of the Central District of California issued a decision yesterday (PDF) in favour of plaintiffs who argued that Warner/Chappel Music had no right to collect royalties for “Happy Birthday To You” in the United States. After tracing the history of the song back to the 1890s, he concluded that Warner/Chappell Music’s predecessor never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics from the purported authors. Continue reading Happy Birthday

US Injunction

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its latest decision in the Apple v. Samsung patent dispute. In a split decision considering, among other things, the USSC’s eBay decision and the requirement of a ‘causal nexus’ between the alleged irreparable harm and the alleged infringement, the court vacated the lower court’s decision not to award a permanent injunction and remanded . Continue reading US Injunction