Late US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a/k/a “Notorious RBG”) inspired films and Saturday Night Live skits, made cameo appearances in three operas, demonstrated her exercise routine on the “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” and was immortalized as a bobblehead.
She also deeply appreciated the arts, including opera, theater, literature, and modern art. Perhaps for that reason, she was a strong supporter of copyright protection.
While many know more about her lace collars than her intellectual property expertise, she was highly respected in legal circles for her ability to explain complex intellectual property issues in clear and concise language.
In fact, Justice Ginsburg was inducted into the Chiefs in Intellectual Property Hall of Fame in 2015, along with her daughter Jane Ginsburg, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in copyright law.*
Justice Ginsburg wrote a number of significant copyright opinions including:
• New York Times Co. v. Tasini, which found that publishers had infringed the copyrights of freelance writers by including their work in electronic databases
• Eldred v. Ashcroft, which upheld the Copyright Term Extension Act, a law that extended existing copyrights for 20 years beyond what had been allowed under a previous law
• Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., which held that the defense of laches can’t be used to bar a claim of copyright infringement brought within the three-year statute of limitations
• Golan v. Holder, which upheld a law that gave copyright protection to foreign works that had been in the public domain
Justice Ginsburg’s input on the upcoming copyright case, Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc. will be sorely missed. This is the first intellectual-property case to be heard since her death. Oral argument in this case is set for next week.
Interestingly, Justice Ginsburg was not as supportive of patent owners as she was of copyright owners. She wrote opinions in Nautilus v. Biosig, which made it easier to argue that patents are invalid as indefinite, and in Thryv v. Click-To-Call, which eliminated an argument patent owners had used to challenge invalidity decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Although Justice Ginsburg rarely authored opinions relating to trademark law, she wrote the opinion in US Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B. V., which held that “[generic term].com” isn’t necessarily generic for federal trademark registration purposes. Rather, it depends on how consumers perceive the term.
Copyright attorneys and trademark attorneys will certainly miss having Justice Ginsburg on the court when Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc. is argued and decided by the US Supreme Court.
Please feel free to contact us if we can be of assistance with any of your copyrights, trademarks, patents, or trade secrets.
*Professor Jane C. Ginsburg, the Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law at Columbia University School of Law, wrote the Foreword to Art Law Deskbook, Vol. 1: Artists’ Rights in Intellectual Property, Moral Rights, and Freedom of Expression, co-authored by members of The DuBoff Law Group Leonard DuBoff and Christy King.
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