The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rendered a decision relating to the availability of attorney’s fees in copyright cases in the case of Doc’s Dream v. Dolores Press.
The Ninth Circuit held that any action that turns on the existence of a valid copyright and whether a copyright has been infringed invokes the Copyright Act, and thus Section 505 of the Copyright Act which allows a court to award reasonable attorney’s fees to the prevailing party. The Ninth Circuit noted that this is the case event when copyright claim is asserted as a claim for declaratory relief.
In accordance with this determination, the Court ruled that when the plaintiff in this action brought a claim for declaratory judgment that the defendant had abandoned its copyrights and the defendant prevailed, that the defendant was the prevailing party in an action invoking the Copyright Act, thus giving the district court the discretion to award attorney’s fees under Section 505.
