In a terse reply filed on in the Manhattan District Court Thursday via attorneys Boni & Zack, Open Road has answered HarperCollins’ claims that their ebook of Jean Craighead George’s JULIE OF THE WOLVES infringes Harper’s rights under copyright law. The essence of their reply is that “Open Road admits that the contract grants HarperCollins the right to publish Julie of the Wolves ‘in book form,’ but denies that such grant encompasses the right to publish the work as an e-book.” They deny that “HarperCollins ever intended to publish Julie of the Wolves as an e-book, and it is denied […]
Legal
Mortenson Says He’s Protecting All Authors In Looking for Dismissal of Lawsuit; Plaintiffs Point to James Frey Case
Legal filings have been piling up in the case seeking class action status against Greg Mortenson, his co-author, publisher Penguin and the charity that Morteson established. The case for dismissal as argued by Mortenson’s attorneys does not address the substance of the allegations–that his story is fraudulent–but rather focuses on numerous issues of legal standing. They note that they plaintiffs have amended and refiled their claims five times now, continuing to look for different basis on which to sue. The current complaint has 11 causes of action; “earlier versions…including different plaintiffs, were 8, 9, 10 and 13 pages long with […]
eNews: BN Makes Progress In Nook Patent Lawsuit Against Chipmaker; eSales Figures From McAfee, Wilkinson; And More
As part of a separate lawsuit in which Barnes & Noble pre-emptively sued chipmaker LSI to mitigate against accusations that the Nook e-reader line infringed on the company’s patents, Judge Edward Chen of California’s Northern District denied LSI’s motions to dismiss 8 of BN’s defenses, including “non-infringement, invalidity, unenforceability, persecution history estoppel/judicial estoppel, no injunctive relief, license and failure to state a claim.” Chen said BN “had adequately pleaded factual allegations of misconduct by Lucent, LSI’s predecessor, which included failure to disclose rules of standard-setting organizations” and that the conduct could fall under the grounds of unforceability. “Indeed, a contrary […]
ITC Attorney Says BN Did Not Infringe On Microsoft Patents
The International Trade Commission trial in Microsoft’s patent infringement action against Barnes & Noble began in Washington on Monday, with BN scoring a prominent opinion in their favor. ITC attorney Jeffrey Hsu told Bloomberg that “he is recommending that ITC Judge Theodore Essex find there was no violation by Barnes & Noble of three Microsoft patents” in testimony given before evidence was presented at trial. Microsoft, however, believes Hsu’s opinion will be swayed once the trial is underway. The software company said in its original complaint that Amazon has licensed at least one of their patents for the Kindle. If the […]
eNews: Sesame Workshop eBooks From Random House; Piatkus’s Digital Romance Imprint; and More
Random House and Sesame Workshop launched a new digital publishing initiative this week with a number of ebooks focusing on early reading and readiness. Elmo Says Achoo! and Elmo’s Breakfast Bingo are the first titles on sale, with an additional 19 titles available this Spring. “With this program, Random House and Sesame Workshop are expanding our long-standing partnership of more than four decades and extending our shared commitment to children’s literacy and enriching children’s early learning experiences to a new platform,” vp, publisher Random House/Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo said in a statement. Release On Valentine’s Day Piatkus […]
Agency Lawsuit Is Expanded; Draws On Information from Amazon
On Friday, the lead law firm in the consolidated class action suits over the agency ebook pricing model Hagens Berman filed an expanded, revised and amended 86-page complaint and promptly issued a press release, as they did with their original filing last August. To understand the case you shouldn’t rely on that release, however, which misspells the name of defendant “Hachett Livre” and trumpets having “uncovered statements” in exotic places like the New Yorker, Steve Jobs’ biography and company blogs. The complaint itself follows the same reasoning as the original filing, basing their allegation of conspiracy on reasoning–that for any […]