Tennessee IP Law Blog

Brantley v. Epic Games, Inc. , No. 8:19-CV-594-PWG, 2020 WL 2794016, at *12 (D. Md. May 29, 2020) This post is a Part II/II of a discussion of Brantley v. Epic Games . Part I discusses the Plaintiffs' Copyright claims , Part II addresses Plaintiffs Trademark claims. https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/terps-show-off-running-man-challenge-dance-on-ellen-show/79982/ Topic: Copyright Preemption of the Lanham Act, Trademark Infringement, Dilution, False Endorsement, Dastar Takeaways: Alleging confusion as to the "person or entity that originated the ideas or communications that ‘goods [or services]’ embody or contain" rather than confusion as to the "producer of the product sold" fails to establish a Lanham Act claim under Dastar . A trademark must identify a unique good or service, therefore a trademark cannot be in itself a good or service, (i.e. the Running Man Dance cannot be a trademark for performances of the Running Man Dance.) Unlike t

Brantley v. Epic Games, Inc. , No. 8:19-CV-594-PWG, 2020 WL 2794016, at *12 (D. Md. May 29, 2020) Topic: Copyright Preemption for Dance & Choreography Takeaways: Court finds that the "Running Man" falls somewhere between Copyrightable choreography and uncopyrightable dance steps and is therefore within the "general subject matter" of Copyright. https://realsport101.com/fortnite/fortnite-chapter-2-season-2-extended-delayed-map-end-date-details-rumours-twitter-reddit-more/ Plaintiffs Jaylen Brantley and Jared Nickens bring this action against Defendant Epic Games, Inc. for the alleged unauthorized appropriation of the dance the “Running Man” that they allegedly created, named, and popularized. Plaintiffs claim that Epic Games intentionally copied the movements of the “Running Man” dance and incorporated them as a feature of its highly popular online video game Fortnite. They bring eight causes of action under common law and the federal Lanham Act

Compulife Software Inc. v. Newman , No. 18-12004, 2020 WL 2549505 (11th Cir. May 20, 2020) Topic:  Trade Secrets & Misappropriation Takeaways: Publicly available data obtained through large-scale data scraping hack of Compulife's system should not have been considered on an individual piece-by-piece basis of the insurance quote data obtained, but rather the aggregate block of information obtained when considering an improper means and trade-secret appropriation analysis. A site's lack of usage restriction regarding publicly available information does not automatically make Data Scraping through robotic means proper. Court generally opines that using a bot to collect "infeasible amounts" of data through data/web scraping may be improper means. This is Part II to the discussion of Compulife Software Inc. v. Newman .  Part I, addressing the Copyright aspect of this case, is available at: https://tennesseetechnologylaw.blogspot.com/2020/05/abstr