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By Bloomberg

BlackBerry Ltd., the Canadian maker of smartphones, has settled a patent and trademark dispute with a company founded by entertainer Ryan Seacrest, according to court filings.

The suit, filed in January 2014 in federal court in San Francisco, accused Seacrest’s Typo Products LLC of infringing one design patent, two utility patents and the trade dress for BlackBerry mobile devices.

On Feb. 4, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick ordered Typo to pay BlackBerry $860,000 in sanctions for continuing to sell infringing products after a court barred it from doing so. At issue was Typo’s keyboard case into which a smartphone is inserted. The Typo case contains a keyboard that, reviewers say, “turns an iPhone into a BlackBerry,” according to court papers.

BlackBerry said Typo had “many design options” for the keyboard that wouldn’t infringe the same combination of elements of the Canadian company’s patents and trade dress.

Orrick granted BlackBerry’s March 2014 request to bar the sale and distribution of the Typo product. The order took effect April 15, 2014, according to court papers.

Under the terms of the stipulated settlement agreement, the court extended the deadline for Typo to pay the sanctions to June 30.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry said in a statement Monday that Typo has agreed to quit selling keyboards for smartphones and other mobile devices with a screen size less than 7.9 inches. The Los Angeles-based company may continue to sell its keyboards for mobile devices with screens larger than that size.

The case is BlackBerry Ltd. v. Typo Products LLC 3:14- cv-00023, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).

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Copyright

CloudFlare Says Court Order Shouldn’t Apply in Copyright Dispute

CloudFlare Inc., a provider of performance and support solutions for websites, has asked a federal court in New York to exclude it from a restraining order in an Internet-piracy case.

In a March 28 filing, San Francisco-based CloudFlare said it doesn’t control the contents of its customers’ websites, and doesn’t “sell, register or administer customers’ domain names.”

In the underlying infringement case, major music companies won a court order barring a website from using the name “Grooveshark,” CloudFlare said in court papers. The music companies now claim the order applies to CloudFlare and requires the company to quit providing services to new websites allegedly started by defendants in the case. CloudFlare isn’t a party to the suit.

Allowing court orders to bind non-parties that aren’t an active part of the case “would unfairly burden Internet infrastructure providers with no interest in a legal dispute,” CloudFlare argued.

The case is Arista Records LLC v. Vita Ckach, 1:15- cv-03701, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

Alibaba Unit to Employ Open Copyright for Literature on Mobiles

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., the Chinese Internet company, said open copyright will be the method through which the company’s mobile division will enter the Internet literature market, the China Times English-language website reported.

Zhou Yun, chief editor of the Alibaba Literature unit, said it will promote open copyright and copyright sharing and loosen control over intellectual property, according to China Times.

About 460 million Chinese use smartphones to read literature, with Internet literature becoming one of the principal applications on mobile devices, China Times reported.

Pirate Bay Founder Frederik Neij Released From Swedish Prison

One of the founders of the Pirate Bay file-sharing site has been released from a Swedish prison after completing a sentence for copyright infringement, the TorrentFreak anti-copyright news website reported.

Fredrik Neij, who was arrested in Thailand and extradited to Sweden, served two-thirds of his 10-month sentence, according to TorrentFreak.

Carl Lundstrom, Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde, all also associated with Pirate Bay, have previously been released from prison, TorrentFreak reported.

For more copyright news, click here.

Trademark

GM Says Yamaha Will Quit Opposing ‘Bolt’ Trademark Applications

General Motors Co. resolved a trademark conflict with Yamaha Motor Co., the company said in an e-mail to The Truth About Cars, an automotive fan website.

According to the database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Detroit-based automaker’s application to register “Bolt” for its electric car was opposed by Yamaha and rejected by the patent office. In a document sent out by the patent office in November 2014, the trademark examiner said there was too great a likelihood of confusion with Yamaha’s “Bolt” mark, which was registered for motorcycles in 2013.

GM told the website that its legal staff had received consent from Yamaha to go ahead with the Bolt name. As a result, the pending application will return to active status, the automaker said.

Under Armour Seeks To Register Marks Associated With NBA Star

Under Armour Inc., the Baltimore-based maker of athletic apparel, applied to register as U.S. trademarks a number of phrases associated with Golden State Warriors player Stephen Curry.

Curry, whose team is in the finals for the National Basketball League Inc.’s championship, endorses Under Armour products and appears in commercials for the clothing company. He was named the National Basketball Association’s most valuable player this season.

Among the phrases associated with Curry that Under Armour seeks to register are “Charged by Belief,” “The League’s Most Unguardable Player,” “The Game’s New Creative Genius,” “Patron Saint of Underdogs” and “Baby-Faced Assassin.”

According to the database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Association, the applications were filed May 21 and May 22 and are to be used with sporting goods, apparel, footwear, hats and eyewear.

Most of the phrases are used in an Under Armour commercial “Shakespeare Got It All Wrong,” narrated by the actor Jamie Foxx.