Section Newsletters

Articles From Jonathan LA Phillips

The FTC Takes on Fake Consumer Reviews and Auto-Renewal of Subscriptions By Steven L. Baron, Jonathan LA Phillips, & Leah Hall Intellectual Property, September 2023 The Federal Trade Commission is engaging in rulemaking on issues that impact consumer transactions online, namely reviews and endorsements of goods and services and automatic renewals of subscriptions. The proposed rules crack down on deceptive practices relating to reviews and endorsements and make it easier for consumers to know about and terminate automatic renewal of subscriptions. 
New Illinois Law Bans Third Parties From Using Merchant Marks Without Permission By Jonathan LA Phillips Intellectual Property, February 2023 With enactment of Illinois’ Fair Food and Retail Delivery Act, the General Assembly barred third parties from using restaurants’ and bars’ trademarks and other intellectual property without their permission. How the defense of nominative fair use will apply under this law, meant to curb food delivery app misbehavior, is unclear.
SCOTUS maintains a waiting game for copyright: Resolving a circuit split, SCOTUS requires registration of copyright before suit By Jonathan LA Phillips Intellectual Property, April 2019 In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that registration, not application for registration, of a copyright is necessary before an infringement suit can proceed.
Recent legislation impacting Illinois solar developments By Jonathan LA Phillips Energy, Utilities, Telecommunications, and Transportation, January 2019 Summaries of the three pieces of 2018 legislation that impacted solar development in Illinois.
Will the Northern District of Illinois’ Mandatory Initial Discovery Pilot program end copyright trolling in the District? By Jonathan LA Phillips Intellectual Property, September 2017 The Northern District of Illinois ordered a Mandatory Initial Discovery Pilot Program (MIDP) beginning 1 June 2017. Before 1 June 2017, the earliest discovery available to copyright-troll defendants were Rule 26(a) disclosures; the MIDP expands parties’ responsibilities at the outset of the case. Before MIDP, plaintiffs were only required to provide information that it might use to support its claims. Now, MIDP parties must provide mandatory disclosures of information “regardless of whether they intend to use the information in presenting their claims or defenses” and “whether favorable or unfavorable.” Some copyright infringement defendants have paid settlements rather than undertaking the cost of proving their innocence. The new MIDP rules level the playing field of questionable complaints, especially against bulk copyright complaints lacking core plaintiff evidence.
How will the FRCP’s amendments affect BitTorrent litigation? By Jonathan LA Phillips Intellectual Property, September 2016 The Supreme Court recently amended the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The changes focused, in part, on the need for early and active judicial case management, ensuring cases do not stall at the outset, and ESI preservation. The new Rules became effective on December 1, 2015. Attorneys handling BitTorrent related copyright litigation should take note, given the amendments’ focus. This is particularly true for the Illinois attorney, because the Northern District of Illinois remains a hotbed of copyright litigation involving the BitTorrent protocol. Accordingly, these amendments should change the way Northern District judges approach these cases.

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