Podcast: The Briefing from the IP Law Blog - The Right to Repair and More New Exemptions
The Briefing from the IP Law Blog – DMCA: The Right to Repair and More new Exemptions
Yesterday the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released a 65-page report detailing what it views as its accomplishments over the last four years. In a press release summarizing the report, the FTC touts the following...more
OEMs may finally get some clarity in the next couple of months about their obligations under Massachusetts and Maine right to repair laws requiring them to provide owners and independent repair facilities access to mechanical...more
In many cases, the answer is yes, but following a recently-adopted exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), owners of certain retail-level machines are no longer forced to hire OEM-certified technicians to...more
A new exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) allows McDonald’s employees, franchise owners, and others to fix McDonald’s often out-of-order ice cream machines. Prior to this exemption, most McDonald’s ice...more
Interest in the “right-to-repair” movement continues to grow, as a number of states propose new legislation in this realm for consumer electronics, with five states successfully enacting such laws. But these laws are not...more
The Automotive Right to Repair Working Group convened by the Maine Attorney General will review proposed legislation that would substantially amend provisions of the Maine Right to Repair Law concerning access to mechanical...more
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2025 includes a mandate that contractors furnish information and documentation to enable the military to modify and repair equipment and systems. Not surprisingly, industry is...more
The US Copyright Office has granted a copyright exemption giving restaurants the right to repair broken equipment by bypassing locks intended to prevent anyone other than the manufacturer from repairing them. This...more
The Maine Attorney General’s Office recently announced that it has convened an 11-person working group of industry stakeholders to develop recommendations for legislation to establish an entity with rulemaking and enforcement...more
Now it’s in force: the EU Directive on a right to repair. It is now up to the Member States to transform the fully harmonized provisions into national law within 24 months. From 31 July 2026 at the latest, manufacturers and...more
The FTC’s Warning Letters - Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent eight companies warning letters regarding their warranty practices, alerting them that certain restrictive warranty language may violate...more
To help organizations stay on top of the main developments in European digital compliance, Morrison Foerster’s European Digital Regulatory Compliance team reports on some of the main topical digital regulatory and compliance...more
Welcome to Wiley’s update on recent developments and what’s next in consumer protection at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC). In this newsletter, we analyze recent regulatory...more
Protecting our planet by making products on the EU market more sustainable and circular: This is the main objective of the new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation ("ESPR"), which has come into force on 18 July 2024...more
The FTC has issued warning letters to eight companies, accusing them of possibly imposing restrictions on third-party servicing of products in violation of the Magnusson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA). The MMWA is a federal...more
The FTC sent warning letters to eight companies informing them that their warranty practices may violate the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (MMWA) by allegedly restricting consumers’ ability to repair their products....more
Product lifecycle is the common thread in emerging Right to Repair and fashion waste legislation - Whether consumers are looking at coffeemakers, smartphones, jeans or shoes, many are rejecting planned obsolescence — the...more
On June 7, 2024, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance et al. v. Library of Congress et al., No. 23-5067 (D.C. Cir.), vacated an earlier district court decision and held that rules...more
Trade associations representing independent repair facilities have become strong advocates for expanding right to repair laws to increase member access to vehicle telematics data. These efforts have created uncertainty for...more
On May 28, 2024, Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed into law the “Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment” bill (HB24-1121). The legislation expands the state’s 2023 right to repair law, which currently...more
Med. Imaging & Tech. All. v. Libr. Of Cong., No. 23-5067, 2024 WL 2873107 (D.C. Cir. June 7, 2024) - In October of 2021, pursuant to the triennial review process of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DCMA”), the...more
On May 28, 2024, Colorado became the fifth state to adopt a “right to repair” law, with Governor Jared Polis signing HB 1121, the “Consumer Right to Repair Digital Electronic Equipment” bill. Colorado now joins California,...more
Now it’s adopted: the EU Directive on a right to repair. This is a game changer. It affects manufacturers and sellers alike, and provides new opportunities for repair service providers. Supply chains become repair chains:...more
The U.S. Copyright Office is considering whether to recommend renewing or expanding current exemptions under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice’s...more
The Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ support a Digital Millennium Copyright Act exemption for vehicle operational data to promote the “right to repair.” An exemption currently exists for computer programs that control...more