If you are a copyright owner, you may have numerous concerns about the best way to protect your intellectual property rights against potential infringement. If, on the other hand, you have been accused of copyright infringement, you may have a number of questions about what this means for your business and your brand. The Copyright Claims Board (CCB) was developed to provide entrepreneurs, small business owners, and individuals with a mechanism for handling “small” claims that would be more efficient and in many cases less expensive than the often lengthy proceedings associated with pursuing legal action through the federal courts – but whether filing a claim through the CCB or agreeing to CCB adjudication if you are the respondent, makes sense in a particular situation will depend on a variety of factors specific to the matter at hand. Call (504) 446-6506 to schedule a consultation with an experienced intellectual property attorney from Business Law Group and engage in a more detailed discussion of whether (and how) the CCB makes a good option for your circumstances.

What Are Intellectual Property Rights?

Intellectual property (IP) rights are like other property rights in that they encompass the rights to use, hold, distribute, or profit from a piece of property. Most people find property rights easy to understand when they are connected to a physical object, such as a car or a computer. This kind of property right is what people usually have in mind when they refer to “owning” an item.

“Real” Property Rights: When the Property Is Bigger Than the Owner

Discussions of real estate are more likely to bring into focus the notion of property rights as the rights to use and profit from the property in question. Anyone can theoretically “own,” and physically hold, a small item with substantial value, such as a piece of jewelry made with gemstones and precious metals. Owning a piece of valuable beachfront property is different; that involves the exclusive right to construct a dwelling on that property (a right that, notably, may be subject to specific local regulations concerning the height and footprint of new construction projects). Owning the same kind of rights to a piece of rich farmland means owning the right to plant crops on that property, harvest the proceeds, and sell them or give them away according to the owner's inclination. The same kind of ownership entails the right to “rent out” the farmland for someone else to plant with crops.

Property Rights and Intangible Assets: Exclusivity at the Scale of Ideas

In each of the real estate scenarios described above, the “property” remains in place, and “ownership” consists of the right to exclusive use of that property. These are the kinds of property rights that also apply to pieces of intellectual property. Inventors who develop a new process or technology, software engineers who develop new applications for “end users” to install on their computers, and others who create various forms of intangible assets, are generally recognized as having the presumptive right to exclusive use of the intellectual property they have created. While these rights are not without their limits, jurisprudence in the United States has developed numerous intellectual property rights protections. Typically, as Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute (LII) points out, these protections have been held to be in the public interest on the basis of an assumption that the right to profit from one's ingenuity is not only in keeping with basic fairness but likely to drive innovation that can benefit the whole of society. “Copyrights” are one form of these IP rights protections.

What Are Copyright Claims?

A copyright claim is an assertion of intellectual property rights to some type of IP that will typically need to be copied, distributed, or in some way reproduced in order to be used. Examples of the kinds of materials that may be subject to copyrights include screenplays, song lyrics, and software code. A screenplay might be copied in a fairly literal sense, via an office copy machine or by copying the word processing document containing the set directions and lines of dialogue – but it would also be “copied,” in a less literal sense that still involved reproducing (that is, producing the material again) if someone were to perform the screenplay; it could still be “copying” even if the director adapted the screenplay into a stage production by having the actors deliver their lines “live,” in a theater, rather than in front of recording cameras.

Because of the various juridical and commercial systems in which the types of intellectual property subject to copyrights may appear, the term copyright claim may be used in a couple of distinct, albeit related, ways. The Copyright Claims Board may cover either.

“Copyright Claims” in Reference to Legal Disputes

Unless they are seeking exclusively injunctive relief, legal cases filed under United States civil torts law will typically attempt to “claim” compensation for “damages” – harms the plaintiff alleges they have suffered as a result of the defendant's alleged actions or failures to act. Used in this context, a “copyright claim” may refer, narrowly, to the damages sought by the plaintiff, or, more broadly, to the filing of the suit in which those damages are sought.

Copyright cases frequently involve laypersons who have limited familiarity with formal legal terminology, and as a result, it is not unusual to hear the relevant terms used somewhat loosely, even between commercial litigants. An intellectual property attorney with Business Law Group may be able to help you understand how and whether the term “copyright claim” has a valid legal meaning in your intellectual property matter.

“Copyright Claims” in Reference to DMCA Takedown Notices

As the United States Copyright Office (USCO) explains, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) created a system whereby the providers of online services – not just providers of the technologies that make it possible to access the internet, but providers of the services that make accessing the internet a worthwhile proposition for a host of people with no significant computer engineering skills – enjoy limitations to their responsibility for any copyright infringements arising from content posted by their users. These limitations on service providers' liability for potential copyright violations were balanced, in the 1998 development of DMCA, by the implementation of a system through which copyright owners (the individuals or entities who own the intellectual property rights to specific copyrightable intangible assets) can submit notices to the online service providers, informing them of potentially infringing content and requesting that the service provider “take down” the material that allegedly infringes on the notifying party's IP rights.

In legal terms, the request a party alleging copyright infringement submits to an online service provider is a “notice,” rather than a “claim.” However, given that the notice is inevitably structured as a claim of ownership over the IP in question, in the years since the DMCA was passed it has understandably become very common in commercial as well as in casual contexts to refer to sending this kind of notice to an online service provider as submitting a “copyright claim.” One of the more interesting features of the Copyright Claims Board is that it addresses not only claims in the legal sense (for damages) but also claims in this alternate sense (of ownership). More particularly, the CCB provides a mechanism for disputing the takedown notices some users of online services receive after their service providers have received copyright claim notices under the DMCA.

What Is the Copyright Claims Board?

The Copyright Claims Board was founded to provide individuals and small business owners with a means of resolving intellectual property disputes over copyrighted or copyrightable materials in a more efficient manner than the notoriously time-consuming and expensive process of a civil court case. While some intangible assets are immensely valuable, in many cases a major reason for defending one's intellectual property rights lies in the IP's potential for development. The differential weighting of potential vs. already actualized which strongly incentivizes private individuals and entrepreneurs who are still in the early stages of business growth to aggressively defend their rights, in hopes of future profit, but also means that the parties who arguably have the greatest incentive to protect their intellectual property rights are often not in an optimal position to afford the time and expense of a lengthy legal battle in which even a victory in court may not result in substantial long-term profits. At the same time, the sheer number of claims filed for copyright infringement each year can have a tendency to overburden the court system, leading to administrative inefficiencies and generalized frustrations. The CCB is intended to address both of these problems at once, by allowing parties to submit the following types of “small” (damages of no more than $30,000) claims and counterclaims:

• Infringement - A CCB claim in which the claimant alleges another party has violated their exclusive IP rights.

• Non-infringement - A CCB claim in which the claimant seeks an advance declaration that their activities do not constitute infringement (typically as a protective measure against an accusation the claimant feels is likely).

• Misrepresentation - A CCB claim in which the claimant alleges another party to have misrepresented information submitted to a service provider under the DMCA (such as by falsely asserting sole ownership of the material whose use allegedly constituted infringement.

For a claim to proceed through the CCB, both parties must agree to have their case handled through the Board, rather than through the federal courts. There can be advantages and disadvantages to either choice, so you may wish to confer with an IP attorney if you have been served notice of a pending CCB claim.

Discuss Your Copyright Concerns With an Experienced Business Attorney

If you have questions about the options available to you through the Copyright Claims Board, consider scheduling a consultation with a business law attorney well-versed in intellectual property concerns. The specific factors that may make it advisable for you to file a claim with the CCB, or on the other hand that may make it a wise idea for you to respond to a claim filed against you, rather than taking your case to the federal courts, will likely depend on the nature of the claim and the scope of the damages sought. Because many IP disputes can be resolved through strategic negotiations, an experienced intellectual property attorney may be able to help you determine whether a negotiated solution is a likely option in your situation. To schedule a tailored consultation with Business Law Group, call (504) 446-6506 today.