U.S. Supreme Court Orders Stay in Pavlovich Case

In the last days of 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a temporary stay in an appeal from a decision of the California Supreme Court for a case that pitted the DVD Copy Control Association (the "Association"), a non-profit group for DVD makers for licensing DVD anti-copying technology to the motion picture industry, against the defendant Matthew Pavlovich and others. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants violated trade secrets by posting decoding software (allowing people to copy DVD content) on the Internet. No patent or copyright infringements were claimed. Before the California court, Pavlovich had successfully argued that the applicable jurisdictions where he could be sued were either his home state (Texas), or the state where decoding software was posted on his Web site (Indiana). The position of the California-based DVD Copy Control Association was that California was the proper jurisdiction due to the movie industry's presence in that state. According to the Association, the stay was necessary to prevent Pavlovich from reposting the decoding software on the Internet. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor granted the stay in order to provide the Court time to collect more arguments. For additional information, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?H22B320F2