Tennessee IP Law Blog

Digital Drilling Data Sys., L.L.C. v. Petrolink Servs., Inc. , No. 19-20116, 2020 WL 3603953 (5th Cir. July 2, 2020) https://www.drillingpoint.com/p2797/cost-reduction-improving-sweet-spot-coverage/ Topics: Software, Preemption, Data Scraping, Unjust Enrichment, DMCA Takeaways: This 5th Circuit verdict indicates a possible split on the issue of data scraping previously addressed by the 11th Circuit in Compulife v. Newman . Here, Digidrill did not challenge the District Court's holding that the drilling data scraped from their system by Petrolink was un-copyrightable facts so it was not addressed by the 5th Circuit aside from being mentioned in a footnote. But in Compulife , the 11th Circuit found that the insurance pricing data that was scraped individually were publicly available facts, but that in the aggregate was not and that data scraping "limitless amounts" of data may constitute improper means. The data scraping in both of these cases deal with "factual"...

Vanderbilt Univ. v. Scholastic, Inc., 382 F. Supp. 3d 734, 743 (M.D. Tenn. 2019). By means of a License Agreement executed in 1997 (“License”), Vanderbilt University (“Vanderbilt”) and Defendant Scholastic, Inc. (“Scholastic”) joined forces to develop, market, and distribute an educational literacy program called Read 180 based on the cutting-edge work of Vanderbilt Professor Ted S. Hasselbring.  Pursuant to the License, Scholastic used certain copyrightable software and related instructional materials, along with other materials it both obtained and created, to develop the “Read 180” program. It was wildly successful. Scholastic distributed Read 180 and paid Vanderbilt royalties under the License until 2015, when Scholastic sold that part of its business and assigned the License to Defendant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (“HMH”). However, Defendants' public exuberance about their success with Read 180 in connection with this sale led Vanderbilt to became...