Nickolas Taylor

ALEXSAM, INC. v. ATENA, INC. Before Stark, Lourie, and Bryson. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Summary: A narrowly defined patent license may result in some activity falling within the scope of the patent claims, but outside the scope of the license. Additionally, a trial court’s determination that an allegation in a complaint is merely conclusory and need not be taken as true when evaluating a motion to dismiss is reviewed de novo.

Almost half of the teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) were recently sued for copyright infringement. In the complaint filed against the Atlanta Hawks, one of the plaintiffs—publisher Kobalt Music Publishing America (Kobalt), the exclusive agent for the licensing of all other plaintiffs’ copyrights at issue—alleged that the NBA teams have been exploiting the rights conferred to the copyright holders by syncing videos posted on various websites and social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok) with music owned by third parties without obtaining the necessary consent to do so. Knobbe Martens Partner Jonathan Hyman and Associate Nickolas Taylor recently authored an article discussing concerns surrounding intellectual property infringement by social media content creators. The lawsuits filed against the various NBA teams similarly highlights the intellectual property infringement concerns that can (and often do) arise in the modern world of social media and the internet.

Knobbe Martens partner and advertising & media practice co-chair Jonathan Hyman and associate Nickolas Taylor have authored the article “Social Media and the Law—A Warning for Brands and Content Creators,”...