Judge Sotomayor Has IP Background

You're probably not learning this here: on Tuesday, President Obama nominated US Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. What you might not have heard/read is that Judge Sotomayor has a background in intellectual property litigation -- as an associate and partner at the Manhattan law firm Pavia & Harcourt and as a judge on the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. As a district court judge in 1997, Judge Sotomayor heard a case brought by a group of freelance journalists who claimed various news outlets including the New York Times and Time violated copyright laws by reproducing their work on electronic databases and archives such as Lexis-Nexis without first obtaining their permission. Judge Sotomayor ruled against the freelancers, arguing that the publishers were within their rights under the Copyright Act. The appeals court reversed Sotomayor's decision, siding with the freelancers, and the Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling 7-2.