Previous Cases & Today's [7/19] Cases

I'm going list a handful of cases that I found intriguing during my first month of work, and post their case titles and/or case numbers up here; I will expand upon them (garnished with my opinions) later on, if I have time--I'm typing this up during my lunch break. :]

Today:
1. Alexander v. Murdoch et al - 1:10-cv-05613

• Judge P. Crotty of the New York Southern Court threw out a copyright suit brought by Alexander against Murdoch (owner of News Corp.), Disney Enterpriseses, Fox Entertainment Group, CBS Broadcasting Inc., Apple Inc., Hulu LLC, IMDB.com Inc., Amazon.com Inc., (and many more); Alexander, co-writer of the "Looney Ben" sitcom plot (co-writer Diane Dowgwillow is not a part of the suit), claimed that "Modern Family"'s producers plagiarized his pilot script. Judge Crotty concurred with Judge Francis' opinion stating, "no reasonable jury could find the 'total concept and feel' of 'Modern Family'" adhered to that of "Looney Ben".

2. Sprinkles Cupcakes, Inc. v. Pink Sprinkles, LLC - 3:11-cv-01117

• Sprinkles Cupcakes is suing Pink Sprinkles Cupcakes for using a similar name to its trademarked named. As consumers are likely to be confused by the two similar names (as they both have extremely similar names and products), Sprinkles Cupcakes (that has made its way onto the Oprah Winfrey show) found it egregious for Pink Sprinkles to continue doing business under its name.

3. Dragovich et al v. United States Dept. of the Treasury et al - 4:10-cv-01564

• (no time to elaborate, but: http://www.law360.com/articles/258592/same-sex-couples-win-class-in-calpers-insurance-fight)

4. (UK case): Allen v. Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, case number GLC 72/10, in the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division

• Only July 18th, the lawsuit against JK Rowling (alleging Rowling stole plot ideas for the "Harry Potter" book 4 (Goblet of Fire) from Adrian Jacobs' (now deceased) book, "Willy the Wizard" [published in 1987], after Jacobs' previous agent, C. Little, had given Rowling access to the book while she was writing the "Harry Potter" series ) was dismissed because "Jacobs' estate failed to pay the bond to continue the case. Judge David Kitchin of the High Court of Justice had said in March that the deceased author's estate would have to produce a £1.5 million pound security bond in order the continue with the copyright infringement case". This order was then challenged by Jacobs' estate and was rejected by the UK Court of Appeal. {http://www.law360.com/articles/258662/uk-court-to-potter-plagiarism-suit-expelliarmus-}

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Previous:
1. United States of America v. City of New York - 1:07-cv-02067

•  The Dept. of Justice sued New York City, claiming that it was disqualifying certain minority candidates due to it's pricey qualifying firefighter test. The city had designed a newer test, but was planning on raising the test price to $54 (from $30). "The plaintiffs argued that the higher price would disproportionately discourage black and Hispanic people from applying to take the test, known as Exam 2000". Previously, in mid-2007 (initial complaint in 2002 filed with the EEOC), the Dept. of Justice had conluded that the test (written exam) was discriminatory. As previously mentioned, the city developed a newer test and began administering a revised exam in January of 2007; the city also launched a $2 million recruitment campaign which resulted in much higher numbers of black and Hispanic applicants that year. The city reported a current 38% of successful test takers to be minorities. The court ruled on July 11th, 2011, that New York City can charge a maximum test-taking fee of $30 to firefighter candidates. On July 13th, Judge Garaufis ruled that the exam must also include gender, ethnicity, and race data, to prevent future discrimination against minorities (the demographic data collected from previous firefighter examinations evidence the court's findings "of disparate impact and disparate treatment").

2. Somers v. Apple, Inc. - 5:07-cv-06507

• (also no time to elaborate: http://www.law360.com/articles/254301/apple-gets-itunes-antitrust-action-tossed)

3. Connectu, Inc. v. Facebook, Inc. - 1:07-cv-10593

• This case is especially interesting if you've watched The Social Network; Facebook (Zuckerberg) asks MA judge to toss out the IP suit from the Winklevoss twins (founders of ConnectU) after they had already dropped "their fight over a reported $65 million settlement".{http://www.law360.com/articles/256582/facebook-wants-winklevoss-suit-in-mass-tossed}

• Armie Hammer as Tyler/Cameron Winklevoss in The Social Network