William Elfving
Encyclopedia
William J. Elfving is a judge in the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Clara
. He was appointed to the bench on November 13, 1997. Prior to his appointment he was in private practice for 30 years. He is the chair of the Superior Court Arbitration/ADR committee. He is most notable because of his many rulings on specialized areas of intellectual property law.
, which allows users to evade copyright protections on DVDs allowing them to directly upload content onto their hard disk drive, he first denied the industry's "very broad request" for a temporary restraining order banning websites from the sale or distribution of the program or linking to places where it might be found, but later issued a preliminary injunction barring sites from selling or distributing the program. (See Universal v. Reimerdes
.)
On September 21, 2008, he issued a summary judgment finding for Google
in a closely watched age discrimination lawsuit, concluding that former director of operations, Brian Reid, had not supplied to the court sufficient evidence supporting the claims that he was fired on February 2004 because of his age. Reid alleged he was fired because he "didn't fit in with the company's youthful culture."
In 2009, he found that Yvonne Wong, a dentist, could continue to sue a couple who posted a negative review on Yelp alleging that "those statements libeled her and caused her emotional distress". In her lawsuit, Wong alleged that Tai Jing and Jia Ma defamed her by complaining on Yelp about the treatment their son received when he was 4 years old; they alleged the boy became lightheaded from laughing gas and had received a filling containing mercury.
Santa Clara County, California
Santa Clara County is a county located at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. As of 2010 it had a population of 1,781,642. The county seat is San Jose. The highly urbanized Santa Clara Valley within Santa Clara County is also known as Silicon Valley...
. He was appointed to the bench on November 13, 1997. Prior to his appointment he was in private practice for 30 years. He is the chair of the Superior Court Arbitration/ADR committee. He is most notable because of his many rulings on specialized areas of intellectual property law.
Notable rulings
In a 1999-2000 case involving the DVD crack DeCSSDeCSS
DeCSS is a computer program capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS, there was no way for computers running a Linux-based operating system to play video DVDs....
, which allows users to evade copyright protections on DVDs allowing them to directly upload content onto their hard disk drive, he first denied the industry's "very broad request" for a temporary restraining order banning websites from the sale or distribution of the program or linking to places where it might be found, but later issued a preliminary injunction barring sites from selling or distributing the program. (See Universal v. Reimerdes
Universal v. Reimerdes
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Reimerdes was the first test of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , a United States federal law.The plaintiffs, 8 movie studios, successfully sought an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS, a program capable of decrypting content protected using the...
.)
On September 21, 2008, he issued a summary judgment finding for Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
in a closely watched age discrimination lawsuit, concluding that former director of operations, Brian Reid, had not supplied to the court sufficient evidence supporting the claims that he was fired on February 2004 because of his age. Reid alleged he was fired because he "didn't fit in with the company's youthful culture."
In 2009, he found that Yvonne Wong, a dentist, could continue to sue a couple who posted a negative review on Yelp alleging that "those statements libeled her and caused her emotional distress". In her lawsuit, Wong alleged that Tai Jing and Jia Ma defamed her by complaining on Yelp about the treatment their son received when he was 4 years old; they alleged the boy became lightheaded from laughing gas and had received a filling containing mercury.
External links
- "Judicial Profile: William Elfving", The Recorder, February 09, 2011