Eric Goldman

DECEMBER 12, 2023

Every SAD Scheme lawsuit is problematic, though the specific reasons may differ. Each lawsuit creates dozens or hundreds of individual dramas, few of which receive any public scrutiny, and usually comes at the cost of due process and the rule of law. As usual, the Schedule A provides threadbare information about each defendant.

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Defendant Lawsuit Judge Court 95

Eric Goldman

APRIL 28, 2024

299 limits joinder in patent cases to defendants who infringe using “the same accused product or process.” ” Congress enacted this requirement to restrict patent trolls who were filing lawsuits against defendants who had nothing in common but the allegation that they were infringing the same patent.

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Defendant Judge Lawsuit Court 98

Eric Goldman

JANUARY 4, 2024

The plaintiff sued 163 defendants for online marketplace sales and got an ex parte TRO, including Amazon account freezes. After a couple of defendants showed up, the judge denied a TRO extension because of the possible lack of merit in the plaintiff’s infringement allegations. Then, the case fell apart. See ECF No.

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Eric Goldman

NOVEMBER 28, 2023

I’m pleased to share the final published version of my article, “ A SAD Scheme of Abusive Intellectual Property Litigation.” ” The article explains how IP rightsowners are twisting the rule of law to obtain ex parte TROs that prompt online marketplaces to freeze the defendants’ cash and accounts.

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Intellectual Property Defendant Litigation Litigator 69

Debevoise Data Blog

JANUARY 13, 2025

The past year was marked by many more filed cases than decisions, and those decisions that were issued largely demonstrated how well-known pitfalls will also hamper this new wave of AI lawsuits. 1] Proving Defendants Use of Training Data Inputs. In Millette v. OpenAI, Inc., Showing Substantial Similarity of Generative AI Outputs.

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Litigation Litigator Intellectual Property Defendant 52

Eric Goldman

JUNE 6, 2025

Though Microsoft is the named defendant in the case, the real players here are the New York Times and OpenAI. The lawsuit boils down to two key allegations, (1) OpenAI uses copyrighted content to train their LLMs, and (2) occasionally spews out copyrighted content in its answers to customer queries. Opinion at 17. The court agreed.

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Defendant Court Lawsuit State law 62

Eric Goldman

NOVEMBER 17, 2024

[Note: the defendants in this case are enumerated on an “Annex A” instead of “Schedule A.” Judge Harjani says the plaintiff’s papers contain “a fair amount of conclusory language about a logical relationship among all defendants but not much, if any, facts to actually support that relationship.”

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Eric Goldman

MARCH 4, 2025

Based on this ruling, Viral DRM’s earlier SAD Scheme lawsuit also may have been deficient on copyright standing grounds. Schedule A Defendants Judge Rejects SAD Scheme JoinderToyota v. Schedule A Defendants Another Judge Balks at SAD Scheme JoinderXie v. Schedule A Defendants My Declaration Identifying Emoji Co.

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Defendant Judge Lawsuit Court 52

Eric Goldman

JULY 9, 2025

But the rise in dupes has brought a corresponding rise in dupe lawsuits, or at least lawsuits that offer up defendants’ or consumers’ use of the term “dupe” as evidence of confusing similarity or intent to deceive. For those who would like a larger explanation of this point, see Part I(B)(1) of this article.)

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Failure-to-appear Lawsuit Intellectual Property Court 103

Eric Goldman

JANUARY 21, 2024

“Plaintiff alleges Defendants downloaded and copied Plaintiff’s copyrighted materials from YouTube, and then re-uploaded infringing versions of Plaintiff’s copyrighted media content to their YouTube channels.” ” Viral DRM sued 20 defendants enumerated in a Schedule A and got an ex parte TRO. Jurisdiction.

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Defendant Judge Court Hearing 78

Eric Goldman

MAY 28, 2025

The plaintiff, a fast-fashion vendor operating under the brand Modlily, filed a complaint under seal against 20 defendants, got an ex parte TRO and asset freeze, and rolled to an unopposed preliminary injunction. ” Are the claims against those other defendants still active? This started out like every other SAD Scheme case.

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Defendant Judge e-filing Court 55

Eric Goldman

JUNE 7, 2024

US Weekly published two articles on the story and posted to Instagram. The court dismisses Bloom’s lawsuit against US Weekly. First, the plaintiff didn’t connect this lack of diligence to the article’s author. Elon Musk “secretly” fathered twins with his subordinate Shivon Zilis. Defamation.

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Failure-to-appear Defendant Lawsuit Court 98

Eric Goldman

JULY 19, 2024

Take a look at the numbers: Amazon restrained $155k+ of the defendant’s money. That’s just for one of the many defendants in this case. “Defendant admits that it profited $32.30 The defendant fought back with its own damages expert. Would fair use apply? This post focuses on the case economics.

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Defendant Judge Court Lawsuit 96

Eric Goldman

JUNE 23, 2023

This article gives some background on Fyk’s story). His lawsuit against Facebook was dashed by Section 230 in the district court. Fyk’s alleged injury has no connection whatsoever to any conduct by the United States, the only defendant in this lawsuit. Fyk’s lawsuit does not accurately describe Section 230.”]

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Lawsuit Defendant Court Litigation 110

Eric Goldman

MARCH 8, 2024

The SAD Scheme involves a trademark owner suing dozens/hundreds of defendants using a sealed complaint, getting an ex parte TRO, and then having the online marketplaces freeze the defendants’ accounts and money. Schedule A Defendants Why Online Marketplaces Don’t Do More to Combat the SAD Scheme–Squishmallows v.

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Defendant Judge Failure-to-appear Court 111

Eric Goldman

FEBRUARY 18, 2024

You may have heard about Squishmallow’s recent lawsuit against Build-a-Bear over plushy knockoffs. Twitter , “the Court [referring to himself in the third person] paid insufficient heed to the requirement that Kelly Toys provide proof of the Alibaba Defendants’ knowledge.” Typical SAD Scheme stuff.

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Judge Defendant e-records Court 111

Lawmatics

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

There are more than 40 million lawsuits in the United states alone every year. And only 2% of those will ultimately proceed with a lawsuit. Contract and small claims cases comprise the bulk of the civil caseload, and unfortunately, most of these lawsuits are baseless claims, also known as frivolous lawsuits.

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Lawsuit Defendant Judge Failure-to-appear 52

Eric Goldman

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Snapchat successfully defends on Section 230 grounds. The court responds: The result in Lemmon makes sense, of course, because the plaintiffs there did not attempt to hold the defendant liable for publication of third-party content. Law360 article. She sued Snapchat for her harms. Note: the abuser was convicted and jailed).

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Defendant Failure-to-appear Court Judge 95

Eric Goldman

MAY 12, 2025

[Note: lawsuits over takedown notice attacks occur occasionally. An allegation that “a defendant filed false Amazon counterfeit reports” is sufficient to state a claim. This is true even if the defendants made its associated fact claims to Amazon “under penalty of perjury.” Fackrell’s article ).

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Court Defendant e-filing Lawsuit 52

Eric Goldman

OCTOBER 23, 2023

The costs of defending those lawsuits is a financial punishment with censorial consequences, even if the defendant never violated the law. The court explains why no state actor is responsible for enforcing the law, so the plaintiffs lack Article III standing. The scheme has countless downsides.

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Defendant Time-tracking Court Litigation 98

Legal Tech Blog

JANUARY 10, 2024

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, claiming the two companies built their AI models by “copying and using millions” of the publication’s articles and now “directly compete” with its content as a result.

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The North Carolina Journey of Law and Technology

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

First, NYT alleged that the defendants engaged in copying substantial NYT content when building their Large Language Models. ” Defendants are accused of such “copying” without permission or payment. It remains unclear whether this is a timely response to the lawsuit. 102 subject matter.

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Lawsuit Intellectual Property Defendant Injury Lawyer 52

Eric Goldman

SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

In my previous post , I summarized: This lawsuit involves troubling allegations that Facebook executives ( allegedly , Nick Clegg, Nicola Mendelsohn, and Cristian Perrella) took bribes from OnlyFans-related entities to spike Facebook and Instagram posts that promoted competitors of OnlyFans. The plaintiffs’ allegations were sizzling.

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Court Judge Defendant Hearing 111

Eric Goldman

APRIL 3, 2023

As this test can be applied on a motion to dismiss when a defendant is using another’s trademark to communicate information, ideas, or viewpoints, our proposed fair use defense is similar to the Rogers test first developed by the Second Circuit in Rogers v. Thus, it is easier for the defendant to win on a motion to dismiss under this test.

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Defendant Judge Court Litigation 116

Brett Trout

JULY 22, 2024

Brett Trout The New York Times (NYT) has sued Defendants Microsoft and various OpenAI companies for allegedly using its copyrighted material to train their Copilot and ChatGPT products respectfully. Hallucinations are article titles and hyperlinks purportedly promulgated by NYT but which do not, in fact, exist. Defendants have a point.

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Defendant Lawsuit Court Law 52

Attorney at Work

JUNE 24, 2021

District Judge Randolph Moss of the District of Columbia allowed two married former Jones Day associates to add a retaliation claim to their bias lawsuit over the firm’s parental leave policy. The retaliation claim is based on a firm press release about the lawsuit after it was filed. The wife’s claims were not made in good faith.

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Law firm Law Law Lawsuit 105

Clio

MARCH 15, 2024

For any lawyer defending a client in a lawsuit, they require the ability to utilize a powerful tool in their arsenal–the motion to dismiss. A motion to dismiss is a motion filed on behalf of a defendant asking the court to dismiss the plaintiff’s case. This article is provided for informational purposes only. In some U.S.

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Defendant Hearing Court Lawsuit 52

Eric Goldman

AUGUST 1, 2023

Neither Time nor BuzzFeed was named as a defendant. Plaintiff then sued various news outlets that “embedded” the tweets in their news stories by including HTML code that would cause the tweet to be dis­played at a particular point in the article. 2021), for example, the defendant purchased a website from another party.

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Defendant Court Litigation Litigator 98

Clio

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

When the parties know who will be responsible for an event such as a third-party lawsuit or an injury caused by a product or service, it makes them more likely to enter into the agreement. Many indemnity clauses also include an obligation to defend against third-party claims. Note: The information in this article applies only to U.S.

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Document automation Lawsuit Defendant Software 52

Debevoise Data Blog

JULY 13, 2021

This is Part 2 of a two-part article on the recent U.S. TransUnion arose from a lawsuit filed by Sergio Ramirez, who tried to purchase a vehicle but was unable to qualify for a loan because the defendant’s OFAC Name Screen Alert identified Ramirez as a “potential match” for someone designated as a national security threat.

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Court Defendant e-filing Federal law 40

Eric Goldman

DECEMBER 13, 2023

It’s that every new case related to the law of copyright preemption of contracts leaves lawyers with a potential new set of arguments to defend or argue against with the law of copyright preemption. In ML Genius, the defendant that sought to maintain access to online data prevailed. Three courts of appeals have answered “no.”

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Judge Court Defendant State law 98

Legal Tech Monitor

MARCH 28, 2023

I came across an article on LinkedIn recently by a former partner of mine. While Rob is a defense trial lawyer, his article details some tips for plaintiffs’ lawyers based on his years of experience trying cases and litigating. The article also has some good tips for all of us practice lawyers as well. I would like to thank Rob.

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Injury Lawyer Lawyer Defendant Litigation 59

TechLaw Crossroads

MARCH 28, 2023

I came across an article on LinkedIn recently by a former partner of mine. While Rob is a defense trial lawyer, his article details some tips for plaintiffs’ lawyers based on his years of experience trying cases and litigating. The article also has some good tips for all of us practice lawyers as well. I would like to thank Rob.

Injury Lawyer 59

Injury Lawyer Lawyer Defendant Litigation 59

Debevoise Data Blog

JULY 7, 2021

This is Part 1 of a two-part article on the recent U.S. Individuals whose personal information was compromised in a data breach have had mixed success in bringing lawsuits in federal court against the companies that held their data. TransUnion: A Win for Defendants in Breach Lawsuits? Supreme Court TransUnion decision.

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Court Lawsuit Litigation Litigator 40

Ikigai Law

JUNE 30, 2023

For e.g. AI tools can be trained on content such as books, articles, photographs, paintings, among others. Written materials such as books, articles are entitled to copyright protection as “literary works” and photographs/paintings are entitled to be protected as “artistic works”. Few of the cases are discussed below.

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Intellectual Property e-filing Lawsuit Court 52

Berkley Technology Law Journal

FEBRUARY 27, 2023

And that text might be internet text, like literally comments on Reddit, or Wikipedia articles. And I think a poignant example of this is on February 22 of this year, Joshua Browder, who is the CEO of Do Not Pay was planning to use ChatGPT to defend a client in traffic court, here in California. So all you’ve got is a lawsuit.

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Machine learning Law Law Intellectual Property 100

LawSites

JANUARY 17, 2022

Launching January 2022, our AI-driven engine will automate litigation processes like lawsuit and motion drafting, discovery preparation, procedural calendaring and much more by turning days of work into 2-3 minute-long activities. Read what our public defender partners in Virginia have to say about us. Outside funding: Less than $1M.

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e-discovery Time-tracking Mediator Attorney 25