U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagen is evidently a Spider-Fan. The court handed down its decision on a royalty case involving a patent on a Spider-Man toy that shoots silly string. A product inventor wanted wanted Marvel to pay royalties indefinitely but the court sided with Marvel.
In writing the decision Justice Kagan said:
- “The parties set no end date for royalties, apparently contemplating that they would continue for as
long as kids want to imitate Spider-Man (by doing whatever a spider can).”
- “Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but only for a limited time.”
- “To the contrary, the decision’s close relation to a whole web of precedents means that reversing it could threaten others.”
- “What we can decide, we can undecide. But stare decisis teaches that we should exercise that authority sparingly. Cf. S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “SpiderMan,” p. 13 (1962) (“[I]n this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility”).”
So Spider-Man’s greatest message is now on the books. How cool is that?
Here’ a video with the patent holder from a few months ago.
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This is so awesome. It really deserves more than three comments. I like Elena Kagen MUCH more than I did last week !
This some how reminds me of when Ginsburg(?) acknowledged that the supreme court ripped through a bunch of video games in an effort to understand them as they had a case they had to deal with. Now tells kid when they’re young if you grow up and become a lawyer all that time reading comics and playing video games actually does eventually pay off.
Oh, and here’s a little more background on the case, as well: http://www.law360.com/articles/611220/kimble-v-marvel-a-tangled-web-of-patent-licensing
Just in case anyone was curious about how the Supreme Court ruled in the case (Kimble v Marvel), here’s a couple of articles about the decision:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/22/us-usa-court-spiderman-idUSKBN0P21JE20150622
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102777696