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Robert Stevens, et al. v. CoreLogic, Inc.

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 16-56089 · judgment August 6, 2018


Certiorari denied · February 19, 2019
Pre-decision estimate: 4% cert probability

Before the decision, roughly the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a circuit split argued in the petition and a Ninth Circuit decision below, and down for a business respondent.

Question presented

Whether, in order to satisfy the mental state requirement of “knowing, or, . . . having reasonable grounds to know” that removal or alteration of copyright management information (“CMI”) in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b) “will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement,” a plaintiff must prove “identifiable” and “likely” future copyright infringement as a result of removal or alteration of CMI, or a “pattern of conduct” or “modus operandi” involving policing infringement by tracking CMI, as the Ninth Circuit held, or whether a plaintiff may instead simply prove that removal or alteration of CMI makes “infringement generally possible or easier to accomplish” without the need for simultaneously proving removal or alteration of CMI resulted in a “particular act of infringement,” as the Register of Copyrights has advocated.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Joel Benjamin Rothman
SRIPLAW

For respondent
Joseph Charles Gratz
Durie Tangri LLP

Case

Subject area
Economic Activity (estimated from the questions presented, in the Supreme Court Database’s categories)

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Amicus briefs
1 cert-stage

Linked docket
18A452

Order
Order list, February 19, 2019 · Certiorari denied

Proceedings

  1. Feb 19 2019
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Feb 07 2019
    Brief amici curiae of American Photographic Artists and Justice Foundation filed. (Distributed)
  3. Jan 30 2019
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/15/2019.
  4. Jan 16 2019
    Waiver of right of respondent CoreLogic, Inc. to respond filed.
  5. Jan 03 2019
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due February 8, 2019)
  6. Nov 02 2018
    Application (18A452) granted by Justice Kagan extending the time to file until January 3, 2019.
  7. Oct 25 2018
    Application (18A452) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from November 4, 2018 to January 3, 2019, submitted to Justice Kagan.