Copyright blog: Grondin v. Fanatics, Inc., USA

The government will have to pay the software developer only $150,000 for its infringement.

The U.S. Navy will be required to pay just over $150,000 in damages for its installation of virtual reality software on nearly 500,000 computers without authorization, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. The court of appeals, in affirming a decision of the Court of Federal Claims, found that if the Navy had been forced to negotiate with the software developer over its use of the virtual reality product, it would have paid for a much smaller number of copies of the work (Bitmanagement Software GmbH v. U.S., No. 23-1506 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 7, 2025)).

Case date: 27 December 2024

Case number No. 23-2149

Court: United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law