Photo of Brittany Benavidez

On March 13, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in a case of first impression, held that a copyright licensee given the unrestricted right to grant sublicenses may do so without using express language.

The case, Photographic Illustrators Corp. v. Orgill, Inc., stems from a license Photographic Illustrators Corp. (“PIC”), a provider of commercial photography services, granted to Osram Sylvania, Inc. (“Sylvania”), a leading manufacturer of lightbulbs, permitting Sylvania to use PIC’s copyrighted photographs of Sylvania’s lightbulbs. The license provided that Sylvania had a “non-exclusive, worldwide license in and to all the Images and the copyrights thereto to freely Use, sub-license Use, and permit Use, in its sole and absolute discretion, in perpetuity, anywhere in the world.” The license also contained a requirement that Sylvania and its dealers and distributors would attribute the photographs that it used to market and sell Sylvania products to the PIC photographer who took them.

A unanimous New York Court of Appeals recently held that the acceptance of an auction bid for the sale of a syndicated loan may constitute a final and binding trade, even if there is language indicating that the agreement is “subject to” the execution of a mutually acceptable, written agreement. The ruling overturns a New York Appellate Court decision that would have permitted parties to change their minds after agreeing to trades during a competitive online auction. The holding of New York’s highest court establishes that oral and electronic agreements in the debt and equity market can be sufficient under certain circumstances to form final and binding agreements.

2016-Federal-Rules-of-Civil-Procedure-194x300Amended in December alongside many other rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 34(b)(2)(B) now requires that objections to document requests be stated with “specificity.” The early applications of the amended rule demonstrate that boilerplate objections will not stand, but courts have yet to answer more nuanced questions regarding the level of specificity the amended rule requires.

Amended Rule 34(b)(2)(B) reads in pertinent part: “For each item or category, the response must either state that inspection and related activities will be permitted as requested or state with specificity the grounds for objecting to the request, including the reasons.” (By contrast, the old rule required only that a party “state an objection to the request.”)