A Los Angeles County, California court last month distanced itself from judicial colleagues in defending the use of red light cameras. A three-judge appellate division panel on February 14 upheld the validity of photo ticketing despite the contrary holdings of the appellate division in Alameda, Kern, Orange, San Bernardino and San Mateo counties.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday decided that photo enforcement vendors American Traffic Solutions (ATS) and Redflex were too much at odds with one another to participate in a court mediation program designed to settle tough cases without going to trial. Each firm has filed suit questioning the integrity and ethics of the other. Redflex refers to “ATS’ pattern and practice of consistent false representations.” ATS, in turn, claims Redflex has been making “false and misleading statements of fact concerning its photographic traffic enforcement products and services.”
Now and then a story comes along that’s right in a writer’s wheelhouse. Yesterday, Chrysler filed a lawsuit in US District Court alleging that Pure Detroit, a small chain of gift shops specializing in Motor City memorabilia, was infringing on their trademark “Imported From Detroit” tagline, popularized in Chrysler’s Super Bowl ad starring rapper Eminem. Pure Detroit started selling their version of the shirts on Feb. 7th, the day after the Super Bowl, followed by Chrysler’s own shirts a few days later, which sold out in short order. Chrysler is donating the profits from those sales to Detroit area charities, and the company says that it tried to work out a similar arrangement with Pure Detroit. Pure Detroit did agree to stop online sales, but they continued to sell the shirts in their retail stores, resulting in the lawsuit. Courts have been pretty consistent that owners of intellectual property have to diligently defend it. According to a leading intellectual property attorney, in this case the courts should side with the Auburn Hills automaker, not the small stores in downtown Detroit.
Sometimes news stories don’t need commentary. This little item, from orange.co.uk, seems like one of those stories:
Simona Suhoi, 28, faces up to five years in jail after police found her behind the wheel a month after she was banned from driving.
The former singer and designer, who is known as Simona Sensual, was pulled her over for not wearing a seatbelt in her home city of Bucharest.
She said: “I admit I shouldn’t have driven the car but I had no other choice.
“You see, I was having terrible pains in the chest, I think it was because of these brand new breast implants.
“I tried to get a taxi but they were all busy so I jumped into the car and dashed for the clinic. I mean, what was I supposed to do?”
And aren’t two airbags safer than one seatbelt anyway? You’ve been a great crowd, don’t forget to tip your waitresses.
I’ve dispatched one of TTAC’s writers to get to the bottom of the copyright fight that’s surrounding Chrysler’s “Imported From Detroit” tagline, as Reuters reports that Chrysler’s claim to the line may not actually hold up.
Chrysler applied to trademark the slogan for use on clothing, bags and other wearable items in January. An attorney for Pure Detroit said the company did not start selling the T-shirts until after the ad aired in early February.
[Moda’s] attorney, John VanOphem, said Chrysler cannot trademark the phrase because it is “merely descriptive.”
“Our position is that Chrysler is trying to claim ownership of something it doesn’t have a right to own,” VanOphem said. “They do not own any exclusive rights to the ‘Imported from Detroit’ phrase.”Chrysler applied to trademark the slogan for use on clothing, bags and other wearable items in January. An attorney for Pure Detroit said the company did not start selling the T-shirts until after the ad aired in early February.
But the attorney, John VanOphem, said Chrysler cannot trademark the phrase because it is “merely descriptive.”
“Our position is that Chrysler is trying to claim ownership of something it doesn’t have a right to own,” VanOphem said. “They do not own any exclusive rights to the ‘Imported from Detroit’ phrase.”
Meanwhile, another battle over automotive copyrights may yet be brewing: Saab has introduced its own answer to SYNC and Onstar, named IQon, a term which may be in conflict with Nissan’s display technology used in the Juke, named I-Con. Hit the jump to see a video of the Nissan system in action, and let us know if you think Saab is going to have to come up with a new name, or if copyright law will let both of these naems coexist.
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Fourteen state senators want to do away with safety inspections for vehicles in the North Carolina. Led by state Senator Stan Bingham (R-Denton), the group introduced Senate Bill 123 last month in response to a 2008 legislative report suggesting the benefit of imposing the $165 million annual burden on motorists has yielded no measurable safety benefit.
Each year, the state’s 6.1 million vehicles must be taken to a private station for a $13.60 safety inspection. Vehicles registered in half of the state’s counties must also take a $30 emissions test. The state only keeps 85 cents out of the safety inspection fee, with the remainder kept by the inspector who also earns significant revenue by repairing whatever faults he discovers.
Police in Massachusetts may no longer stop a car merely because a laser jammer or aftermarket backup camera partially obscures the motto on a license plate. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals decided on March 2 that the state police had no business pulling over Patrick H. Miller simply because the phrase “Spirit of America” at the bottom of his plate was partially covered as he drove on Route 93 South in Stoneham on April 30, 2009.
Wenatchee, Washington is suing to stop the public from circulating a petition that would thwart the use of red light cameras and speed cameras in the city of 28,000. In March 2009, Wenatchee officials signed a contract with American Traffic Solutions (ATS), and they claimed this agreement would be “impaired” if voters had a say in whether or not the program should continue, according to the complaint filed last Tuesday in a Chelan County court.
“The city seeks a declaration that the proposed Wenatchee Initiative No. 1 is invalid because it is beyond the scope of the initiative power and violates the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution and the Washington State Constitution,” Steve D. Smith, attorney for the city, wrote.
Red light running all but disappeared at a New Jersey intersection after the duration of the yellow light warning time was increased under threat of a lawsuit. Glassboro gave the private company American Traffic Solutions (ATS) permission to issue red light camera tickets at the intersection of William Dalton Drive and Delsea Drive on March 26. The location was so successful at issuing $85 tickets that it generated $1 million worth of notices within just seven months.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott does not want anything even resembling a speed camera to operate in the Lone Star State. In an opinion handed down yesterday, Abbott denied the request of the city of Plano’s request to use handheld laser speed guns equipped with cameras and GPS devices on the grounds that doing so would violate a Texas law that bans automated photo radar devices.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Supreme Court’s recent ruling against Mazda is re-opening at least one more lawsuit against an automaker, noting
The Ford case focuses not on seat belts but on the type of glass the company chose to install in its 1997 F-150 pickup. The plaintiff alleged Ford was liable in the death of a passenger in an F-150 who was ejected during a 2002 accident in which the truck veered off the road and rolled over several times.
The victim wasn’t wearing a seat belt, and his mother alleged he would not have been ejected had Ford installed laminated side windows on the truck instead of using tempered glass. Federal safety regulations gave Ford a choice in which type of windows to install.
The case now goes back to the South Carolina Supreme Court, which ruled last year that the lawsuit was preempted by the federal regulations.
It’s not clear at this point if other OEMs will be vulnerable to re-opened lawsuits based on the Mazda ruling, but don’t be surprised if the Supreme Court’s decision continues to cause legal headaches for automakers.
After accepting more than three dozen campaign checks from registered photo enforcement lobbyists and other interested parties, Missouri’s attorney general on Thursday handed down a decision endorsing the use of automated ticketing machines despite significant legal controversy. Former Attorney General Jay Nixon stated when the city of Arnold started using red light cameras in 2005 that he believed tickets sent in the mail were not valid. The office of current Attorney General Chris Koster, however, issued a letter to state Senator Jim Lembke (R-St. Louis) defending the practice.
A police officer in Houston, Texas thought he had a slam dunk case against a motorist he stopped for driving on the wrong side of the road on September 15, 2008. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in a February 10 decision overturned the stop on the grounds that driving on the wrong side of the road is not always against the law.
In what may be one of the most important Supreme Court rulings for the car industry in some time [full opinion in PDF here], the highest court in the land has found that compliance with minimum federal safety standards is not a defense against personal injury or wrongful death suits brought in state courts. The case in question involved a 2002 accident in which Than Williamson was killed when a Jeep Wrangler hit her family’s 1993 Mazda MPV. The Williamson MPV had only lap belts because shoulder belts weren’t required by federal law until 2007. A California court has already barred the lawsuit from coming forward, arguing that federal regulations supersede any local rulings, and that then-legal seatbelts should protect manufacturers from personal injury liability. But in the wake of another ruling involving pharmaceutical companies, it seemed that the court might overturn that ruling, which it now has.
A consensus is growing among the appellate divisions of the California Superior Court that red light camera evidence currently offered by private companies does not meet the appropriate legal standard of proof. In December, a three-judge appeals panel in San Bernardino handed down a unanimous decision reversing the photo ticket issued to motorist John Macias.
Macias received a ticket in the mail after his car was photographed in Victorville on January 10, 2009 making a slow right-hand turn at a light that had been red for 0.36 seconds. His attorney, Robert D. Conaway, argued that when San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Baker testified as a witness against Macias, Baker had no personal knowledge of the facts of the case. As such, his evidence was hearsay.
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