The Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”) affords trade secret owners a federal cause of action for trade secret misappropriation occurring on or subsequent to its effective date of May 11, 2016, if, the trade secret is “related to a product or service used in, or intended for use in, interstate or foreign commerce.”
In 2010 Oracle America, Inc., filed suit against Google, Inc., in the Northern District of
California (Case No. C 10–03561) (Alsup, J.), and alleged that Google infringed Oracles’
copyright in its Java Application Programming Interface (“API”). The parties and the Court
agreed that everyone was and remains free to program in the Java language itself, and that
Google was free to use the Java language to write its own API. However, while Google took
care to provide fresh line-by-line implementations in 97 percent of the Java API, it generally
replicated the overall name organization and functionality of 37 packages in the Java API (three
percent).
The resale royalty right, otherwise known as droit de suite, originated in France in
the mid-19th century. Since then proponents have sought its addition to the copyright
laws of countries around the world. Recently, interest in the right has seen resurgence.
Proponents have renewed their efforts to justify it in the United States.
Artists have a long history of drawing on society’s body of learning and knowledge to
animate their imaginations and dreams, often without asking for permission before they
incorporate another’s work into their own. It is a practice that has existed as long as art itself.
Whether the artist use of another’s work consists of creating variations or incorporating salient
aspects of the work, the artist’s goal is usually the effective transformation of the borrowed
pieces into a new work of art.