U.S. District Judge Omar Williams for Connecticut in New Haven granted plaintiff Charter Communications and defendant Bridger Mahlum, Charter’s former director-state government affairs, an additional 14 days, to Nov. 21, to finalize their settlement agreement and to voluntarily dismiss the case, said the judge’s text-only order Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-01106). Williams also granted the parties’ request that they be allowed to file a notice of dismissal rather than a copy of the settlement agreement, “given the confidential nature of the terms of the agreement,” said the order. Charter had sought injunctive relief against Mahlum to prevent him from going to work for BroadbandMT, a direct competitor, and from spilling Charter’s state broadband, equity, access and deployment program trade secrets with his new employer (see 2308210001).

KDSK Channel 5 in St. Louis asserts 15 affirmative defenses in denying Gray Media’s allegations that it infringed Gray’s First Alert Weather trademark with its own Weather First logo (see 2309180002), said KDSK’s answer Thursday (docket 4:23-cv-01163) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis. Gray’s asserted First Alert Weather mark hasn’t become “distinctive of Gray’s goods in interstate commerce,” said KDSK’s answer. Some or all of Gray’s claims also “are barred by the doctrine of fair use,” it said. Gray’s claims also fail because there’s "no likelihood of confusion" between KDSK’s use of Weather First and Gray’s alleged First Alert Weather mark, it said. Gray’s asserted First Alert Weather mark “already co-exists with numerous similar third-party marks.” said KDSK. That means “the consuming public will readily differentiate” between the asserted First Alert Weather mark and KDSK’s use of Weather First without any likelihood of confusion, it said.

Ten or more John Doe owners, operators and employees built Ofra Cosmetics “into one of the most successful and influential beauty brands on social media” but did so “through blatant, willful, and repeated copyright infringement of the sound recordings and musical compositions of various content owners,” alleged Sony Music and seven of its affiliated labels in a complaint Tuesday (docket 0:23-cv-62073) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Fort Lauderdale. The complaint estimates that Ofra has amassed more than 1.7 million followers on Instagram alone. Its social media pages are “populated with videos” showcasing Ofra’s branded makeup and beauty products, “alongside popular copyrighted sound recordings and musical compositions,” said the complaint. In doing so, Ofra “regularly exploits,” or “materially contributes to the exploitation,” of videos “that contain unlicensed sound recordings and musical compositions owned by record and music publishing companies,” the complaint said. It estimates that Ofra has posted at least 329 videos to its own social media pages featuring the plaintiffs’ sound recordings without their authorization. The videos are ads, and the Sony Music sound recordings are used to enhance their “commercial impact,” the plaintiffs said. Sony Music informed Ofra of its infringing use of the copyrighted material by letter in September 2022, but the company has refused “to meaningfully engage in any discussions” about stopping the infringing conduct, said the complaint. That conduct “has caused and continues to cause substantial and irreparable harm to Sony Music,” while enriching Ofra at the "expense" of Sony Music, its labels and its artists, it said. The complaint seeks to hold Ofra responsible for its substantial, willful, direct and secondary copyright infringement, the “full extent” of which is “presently unknown,” it said. The plaintiffs are presently unaware of the "true names and/or the involvement" of the defendants sued by the fictitious John Doe designations, and for that reason they sue them by those designations, said the complaint. The plaintiffs "will seek leave to amend this pleading to identify those defendants when their true names and involvement in the infringements and other wrongful conduct hereinafter described are known," it said.

Plaintiff Nimitz Technologies and defendant CNET Media stipulate to dismiss Nimitz’s claims against CNET with prejudice, and to dismiss CNET’s counterclaims against Nimitz without prejudice, said their joint notice Thursday (docket 1:21-cv-01247) in U.S. District Court for Delaware in Wilmington. Each party will bear its own court costs and attorneys’ fees, said the notice. Nimitz sued CNET in August 2021 alleging infringement of three video streaming and broadcast technology patents, and CNET countersued a month later for declarations of noninfringement and for an order declaring that the claims of one of the three patents were invalid. The case gained notoriety in 2022 when Nimitz aroused the suspicions of U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly that it was a sham organization whose lawsuit was being funded by third parties in exchange for a share of the suit’s recovery. When the judge ordered Nimitz to produce bank records and internal communications documents to show it wasn’t accepting third-party funding, Nimitz unsuccessfully sought mandamus relief from the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit to halt the judge’s investigation (see 2212010035). Nimitz ultimately turned the records over to Connolly on April 6 this year (see 2304070038), but the judge never disclosed the findings of his investigation.

Charter Communications reached a settlement in principle of its misappropriation of trade secret claims against Bridger Mahlum, its former director-state government affairs, said the parties’ joint report and notice Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-01106) in U.S. District Court for Connecticut in New Haven. The parties ask that all deadlines be vacated, and that they be permitted to consummate and execute a written settlement agreement within the next 14 days, said the joint report, which didn’t disclose the settlement terms. Charter had sought injunctive relief against Mahlum to prevent him from going to work for BroadbandMT, a direct competitor, and from spilling Charter’s state broadband, equity, access and deployment program trade secrets with his new employer (see 2308210001).

The U.S. District Court for Connecticut in New Haven should deny the Sept. 29 motion of Bridger Mahlum, Charter Communications’ former director-state government affairs, to dismiss Charter’s trade secrets complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and, in the alternative, his motion to transfer under binding U.S. Supreme Court, 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and Connecticut precedent (see 2310020024), said Charter’s opposition Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01106). Charter seeks to prevent Mahlum from spilling Charter’s broadband, equity, access and deployment program trade secrets to BroadbandMT, a direct competitor. Mahlum’s arguments are “yet another meritless attempt” to delay the court’s decision on Charter’s motion for preliminary injunctive relief, said Charter’s opposition. Declining to exercise jurisdiction over Mahlum “would simply delay the resolution of this matter and provide him with an avenue to circumvent his obligations to Charter,” it said. Mahlum has “no valid response to Charter’s assertion of personal jurisdiction,” and so his motion to dismiss “misstates black letter law under binding Connecticut Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court precedent,” it said. His motion “misconstrues cases” that support the court’s jurisdiction over him, it said. It also attempts to distract the court with “irrelevant facts,” it said. The court should reject Mahlum’s “attempted misdirection,” deny his motion to dismiss, hold that it has personal jurisdiction over Mahlum, and grant Charter’s request for a preliminary injunction, it said.

AT&T's, T-Mobile's and Verizon's 4G and 5G networks infringe a March 2021 patent (10,951,359) on an invention “for providing control resource set configuration” in a wireless communication network, alleged patent owner Asus Technology Licensing in three nearly identical, consecutively numbered complaints Thursday (dockets 2:23-cv-00486, 2:23-cv-00487 and 2:23-cv-00488) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Marshall. Asus complies with the intellectual property rights policy of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to license 4G- and 5G-essential patents on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms, said the three complaints. ETSI is also one of several standards-setting organizations that are “organization partners” of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP, which “maintains and develops globally applicable technical specifications,” including for 4G and 5G wireless communication technologies, Asus said. ETSI developed and promulgated an IPR policy that’s intended “to strike a balance between the need for open standards on the one hand, and the rights of IPR owners on the other hand,” Asus said. In “an abundance of caution” and to ensure Asus’ compliance with ETSI's IPR policy, Asus informed each of the three carriers it was prepared to grant them an "irrevocable license" to the ‘359 patent on FRAND terms, said the complaints. Asus gave the carriers multiple opportunities to license the ‘357 patent, but the carriers haven’t “reciprocated” those “good faith efforts to negotiate a FRAND license,” they said. The carriers didn't comment Friday.

Defendants Guy Ravine and Open Artificial Intelligence withdrew their Oct. 11 motion to dismiss plaintiff OpenAI’s claims for injunctive relief, said their notice Wednesday (docket 4:23-cv-03918) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. On Oct. 13, the court directed the parties to confer on the briefing and hearing schedule for defendants’ motion to dismiss, set to be heard Dec. 12, and plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction. The parties agreed the defendants will answer the complaint by Monday; they also agreed defendants may file any counterclaims within 30 days after the court rules on OpenAI’s preliminary injunction motion, it said.

Plaintiffs in two related trademark infringement lawsuits against OpenAI filed a notice of supplemental authority (docket 3:23-cv-03223) Monday based on “newly issued authority” relevant to their opposition to OpenAI’s motion to dismiss in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Plaintiffs Paul Tremblay and Sarah Silverman cited a Friday order in California Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles denying defendants’ Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and/or YouTube’s demurrer in a common law negligence claim. The court said claims for negligence against social media companies may proceed under traditional common law principles. "In pertinent part," said plaintiffs in the lawsuits against OpenAI. The Superior Court said plaintiffs “adequately stated a claim of negligence based on lack of reasonable care in the Defendants’ own conduct from which harm might reasonably be anticipated.” The plaintiffs in the related Tremblay and Silverman cases allege OpenAI and several of its subsidiaries violated plaintiffs’ rights under the Digital Millennial Copyright Act by removing copyright management information (CMI) from plaintiffs’ infringed works and redistributing those works via ChatGPT without CMI or with false CMI.

BMI went to U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin in Milwaukee on behalf of itself and eight music publishers to bar an Elkhorn, Wisconsin, establishment, Duesterbeck’s Brewing Co. and its owners, Benjamin and Laura Johnson, from continuing to publicly perform musical compositions in the BMI repertoire without a license, said its complaint Friday (docket 2:23-cv-01362). BMI contacted Duesterbeck’s and the Johnsons more than 40 times by phone, mail and email since May 2021 in an effort to educate them about their obligations under the Copyright Act to buy a BMI license, said the complaint. Included in the letters were cease and desist notices, giving the defendants “formal notice that they must immediately cease all use of BMI-licensed music” in their establishment, it said. BMI and the eight publishers allege eight claims of willful copyright infringement, based on the defendants’ unauthorized public performance of musical compositions from the BMI catalog, it said.