Notice

Just a reminder, these posts are not legal advice. This site is the personal blog of Mark Radcliffe and the opinions expressed are those of Mark Radcliffe and not those of his clients, DLA Piper or the clients of DLA Piper.

About Me:

Mark Radcliffe

I earned a B.S. in Chemistry magna cum laude from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. I have been practicing law in Silicon Valley for over 25 years and am now a senior partner at DLA Piper. DLA Piper is a new global law firm formed in 2005 from the merger of three law firms. The firm now has 3600 lawyers in 25 countries and 65 cities. My practice is a mix of corporate securities and intellectual property. I work with many startups as well as large global companies. I have had the opportunity to work with companies in many industries, ranging from semiconductor to digital media to open source. I am the General Counsel, pro bono, of the Open Source Initiative and I ran the "Users" committee reviewing the GPLv3 draft.

Major Victory for Open Source in Jacobsen Decision

13/08/08

On August 13, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued its decision in the Jacobsen v. Katzer case.
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf
This case was the first real test of the remedies for breach of open source licenses in US courts (for more background, see http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-open-source-legal-decision-jacobsen.html). Unfortunately, the District Court decision was wrong and wrong in a way that could have been a disaster for open source community. The District Court found that the requirements in the Artistic License for notice were merely a contractual covenant rather than a condition on the scope of the license (the courts sometimes use the word “restriction” on the scope of the license and “condition” at other times, but they have the same meaning). Consequently, under the District Court’s analysis, Katzer’s actions were not copyright infringement. Thus, Jacobsen was limited to the traditional remedy for breach of contract, monetary damages, rather than the copyright remedy of injunctive relief (injunctive relief means that the court will order Katzer to comply with the terms of the contract).

The CAFC reversed the District Court’s decision and its reasoning is very helpful for the open source community. The court found that the limitations in the Artistic License were “conditions” on the scope of the license and, thus, Katzer was liable for copyright infringement (as well as breach of contract). The CAFC noted that the Artistic License imposed its obligations through the use of the words “provided that” which is generally viewed as imposing a condition. Although the reasoning is limited to the Artistic License and the interpretation of each open source license will depend on the wording of its provisions, this decision is a welcome change to the District Court decision. The case has been remanded for the District Court to determine if the other criteria for injunctive relief have been met, but the CAFC’s decision strongly suggests that they have been met.

The open source community should thank the lawyers who worked hard and on a pro bono basis (i.e. free) to achieve this victory. Any such list is bound to be incomplete and I apologize in advance for anyone that I have missed, but I think that the major contributors were: Victoria Hall (Jacobsen’s counsel), Chris Ridder and Anthony Falzone (Creative Commons counsel, authors of the amici brief), Karen Copenhaver (Choate Hall, counsel for the Linux Foundation who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief), Allison Randal and Roberta Cairney (counsel for Perl Foundation who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief), Larry Rosen (Rosenlaw & Einschlag, who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief), Scott Peterson (HP, member of OSI’s Legal Advisory Council who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief), David Gross (DLA Piper, counsel for OSI who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief) and Steve Chiari (DLA Piper, counsel for OSI who assisted on the Creative Commons amici brief).

Post tags:

2 Comments

  1. [...] The District Court in San Francisco in the Jacobsen v Katzner case denied Jacobsen a preliminary injunction (as well as clarifying the scope of some of the claims) in its decision issued yesterday. This decision is very disappointing for the open source community.  The decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (”CAFC”) last year was a great victory for open source licensors. http://lawandlifesiliconvalley.com/blog/?p=64  [...]

    Pingback by Law & Life: Silicon Valley » Jacobsen: District Court Denies Preliminary Injunction — January 6, 2009 @ 11:34 am

  2. [...] 1. First Major Appellate Decision For a FOSS License. Last year, the District Court in San Francisco in Jacobsen v. Katzner decided the first case under US law interpreting an open source license. That decision had the potential to significantly undercut the ability of FOSS licensors to enforce their license. However in August, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (”CAFC”) overturned the District Court decision and strongly supported the right of FOSS licensors to obtain copyright remedies for breach of FOSS licenses: such remedies include injunctive relief (an order by the court to the licensee to obey the license) and statutory damages of up to $150,000 for each infringed work. (Read more about the victory for open source in the Jacobsen Decision.) [...]

    Pingback by Wazi » Articles » Top Ten Open Source Legal Issues for 2008 — January 14, 2009 @ 2:31 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.