On March 23, 2020, the Supreme Court remorsefully found in Allen v. Cooper that its own precedents obligated it to affirm that states are immune from federal litigation in claims of copyright infringement. On September 4, 2020, plaintiff Rick Allen filed a motion to reconsider the North Carolina district court’s 2017 dismissal of his takings claim under the Fifth Amendment ...
“Congress, however, barely considered the availability of state remedies for patent infringement and hence whether the States’ conduct might have amounted to a constitutional violation under the Fourteenth Amendment. It did hear a limited amount of testimony to the effect that the remedies available in some States were uncertain. The primary point made by these witnesses, however, was not that ...
Most readers know that the conflict in Allen v. Cooper began when the State of North Carolina made unlicensed use of Rick Allen’s copyrighted AV and photographic works documenting recovery and research of Blackbeard’s flagship Queen Anne’s Revenge. On March 23rd, the Court ruled that Allen was barred from bringing suit against the State under the principle of “sovereign immunity,” as expressed in the ...
