Joseph C. Gratz

(Southern District of New York; 2nd Circuit) Defended Google from claims of copyright infringement in a putative class action involving the Google Book Search project. Secured summary judgment in the district court and defended that win on appeal.

(Southern District of New York) Represents Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library based in San Francisco, in copyright litigation brought by major publishers alleging that Internet Archive’s practice of digitally lending print books it owns to one patron at a time violates copyright law.

(Southern District of New York) Represented UpCodes, a Y Combinator-backed legal information start-up, in copyright litigation about model building codes enacted into law. In its summary judgment ruling, the court adopted UpCodes’ legal positions as to its current business practices.

(Southern District of California; 9th Circuit) Represented CoreLogic in defeating a billion-dollar putative class action alleging wrongful removal of copyright management information in violation of § 1202 of the DMCA. Secured summary judgment in the district court and defended that win on appeal.

(Northern District of California; 9th Circuit) Represented Facebook in asserting the safe harbor under § 512 of the DMCA against a copyright infringement claim. Won dismissal at the pleadings stage in the district court and defended that win on appeal.

(District of Delaware) Defended Poynt against claims of trademark infringement involving the mark POINT. Defeated a motion for preliminary injunction, leading to a favorable settlement.

(Northern District of California) Defended Redbubble, an online marketplace for artists, against claims of copyright and trademark infringement. Obtained a complete defense jury verdict at trial.

(Northern District of California) Representing OpenAI in a class action challenging its use of publicly available material to train a generative AI model that writes code.

Advising numerous online platforms regarding copyright and trademark intermediary liability, fair use, the DMCA safe harbor, application of § 230 immunity, and web scraping.