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New Ninth Circuit Rulings on Implied-Contract Claims Provide Guidance for Idea-Submission Cases

By Amanda Bronstad and Stan Soocher
June 30, 2010

In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that state implied-in-fact contract claims weren't preempted by federal copyright law. Grosso v. Miramax Film Corp., 383 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2004). The ruling resulted in a predictable increase in idea-submission suits over TV and film productions. But few judicial opinions since have cited Grosso. In June 2010, however, the Ninth Circuit issued two decisions ' with differing results ' that, by also drawing from precedents from decades before, illuminate how a court should consider the elements of an implied-contract case.

The first report that follows is on the Ninth Circuit's ruling in an implied-contract case, over the movie The Last Samurai, that allows the plaintiffs to proceed with their state law claim and determined “there may be evidence in the record from which a reasonable fact-finder could find unauthorized use by the Defendants.” The second report analyzes the other recent Ninth Circuit ruling, which concluded that an implied-contract claim brought over the TV series Ghost Hunters was preempted by federal copyright law.

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