Petitions of the week

This week we highlight petitions pending before the Supreme Court that address, among other things, the requirements for a foreign company’s sales of components to qualify as induced infringement; when per diem payments to an employee constitute wages, rather than reimbursement, under the Fair Labor Standards Act; and whether Title III of the American with Disabilities Act requires a website or mobile phone application to satisfy discrete accessibility requirements in certain situations.

The petitions of the week are:

18-1530

Issue: Whether, in view of the presumption against extraterritoriality, a foreign defendant’s foreign sales of components to a foreign company qualify as induced infringement, when the defendant knew of, at most, a risk that the components might be incorporated by third parties into infringing products that might be sold by other third parties in the United States.

18-1539

Issue: Whether Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires a website or mobile-phone application that offers goods or services to the public to satisfy discrete accessibility requirements with respect to individuals with disabilities.

18-1540

Issues: (1) Whether a plaintiff must prove that a defendant engaged in some form of volitional conduct in order to prove direct copyright infringement, as described in Justice Antonin Scalia’s dissenting opinion in American Broadcasting Companies v. Aereo, Inc.; (2) whether, if so, that requirement is properly understood as identical to common-law proximate causation, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit held here and as one member of the panel opined in BWP Media USA Inc. v. Polyvore Inc.; or a less demanding causation standard, as the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 3rd, 4th and 5th Circuits have held; or requiring only an affirmative act with a meaningful connection to the infringement, as suggested by other members of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit panel in Polyvore; and (3) whether a volitional-conduct requirement insulates from liability for direct infringement defendants who create and maintain automated systems for making copies of content not requested by users, as the 9th Circuit held, in conflict with the Supreme Court’s decision in Aereo and opinions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the District of Columbia and 2nd Circuits.

18-1541

Issue: Whether, and under what circumstances, per diem payments to an employee constitute wages, rather than reimbursement, under Section 207(e)(2) of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Posted in: Cases in the Pipeline

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