An amicus brief was recently filed by Yahoo!, Inc., in its lawsuit against LaLigue contre le Racisme et l' Antisemitisme, Case No. 01-17424 (9th Cir.). Later this year, a federal appellate court will decide whether or not French anti-discrimination law can restrict freedom of speech on U.S.-based web sites that are accessible in France.
In 2000, a Paris court ruled that the Yahoo! web site violated French law, due to the fact that its users offered certain Nazi artifacts for sale. In order to force compliance with the order, French plaintiffs must seek enforcement from a U.S. court. In response, Yahoo! sought a declaratory ruling and a federal district court held that enforcing the French order would violate the First Amendment. The matter is now on appeal. The Yahoo! case presents the question of whether the Internet should be governed by myriad local censorship laws from around the world. U.S. courts have held uniformly that the Internet should receive the highest degree of First Amendment protection.
Web.com's Patent and Intellectual Property with Web Hosting Company, Hostopia
In July, 2006, Atlanta-based web hosting, managed email, ecommerce, and online business applications giant, Web.com, entered into a non-exclusive license agreement with web hosting firm, Hostopia.com Inc., granting Hostopia the rights to two of Web.com's patents over five years, on a non-transferable basis. Web.com's portfolio of 19 registered, and numerous pending, U.S. patents relates to several core technologies that are vital to the web hosting industry.
The licensed patents broadly cover methods for website building and web hosting control panels. According to the agreement, Hostopia will pay Web.com a royalty equal to 10% of their gross U.S. retail revenues for five years. In addition, the companies have entered a cross-license agreement in which Web.com was granted rights to thousands of HTML and FLASH website templates and a license to additional intellectual property in the future at no additional cost. The companies have also agreed to a mutual covenant not to sue for patent infringement.
Spokespersons for Web.com had this to say, concerning the licensing agreement with Hostopia:
''Web.com has a portfolio of 19 registered patents with several additional pending patents. Web.com's patents touch on a number of key technologies that are vital to the web hosting and Software-as-a-Services industries. Web.com's first patent license transaction was a milestone for the Company as it validated Web.com's belief in the value of its patents. Hostopia paid Web.com an amount that was roughly equal to 10% of Hostopia's U.S. retail revenues over five years. Web.com intends to use its patent rights as a means of extending its brand and its technology so as to create value for its shareholders and to protect its innovations.''
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