Ian C. Ballon

The current U.S. Supreme Court term is likely to deeply affect Ian Ballon’s practice three times over, even though he has no cases there.

Ballon is one the nation’s top experts on internet law and e-commerce and, as co-chair of his firm’s global intellectual property and technology practice group, a seasoned IP litigator and counselor.

And to his surprise, this year, the high court is considering three sets of cases centered on three separate areas of his practice. “I think it’s illustrative of the fact that as the digital economy has expanded, the Supreme Court has taken more and more cases relevant to the digital economy,” he said.

Ballon is the author of the five-volume legal treatise, “E-Commerce and Internet Law: Treatise With Forms 2d Edition,” including its 2022 update. A big part of his practice in those areas “includes representation of platforms and service providers in the defense of their IP claims,” he said. Those cases often involve the Communications Decency Act and its controversial Section 230.

And this term, for the first time, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the scope of the CDA. Two cases, Gonzalez v. Google LLC and Twitter v. Taamneh, deal with whether internet providers can be liable for posting material that supported ISIS. Experts have said the court’s decisions could fundamentally change the internet.

Ballon also handles copyright and other matters for a number of artists working at the intersection of art and new technology. Among them is Richard Prince, who is known as an “appropriation artist.”

So Ballon is anxiously awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision in a case about Andy Warhol’s use of a copyrighted photo of the late singer Prince. “If an Andy Warhol painting is not a fair use in the art world, what is?” he asked. Ballon said the decision could have implications for the tech world as well as art.

The third pending high court case pits trademark law against the First Amendment and Jack Daniels against a maker of dog chew toys. “It could be an important case because however the court decides it will impact a lot of technology companies because of that intersection of the First Amendment and intellectual property rights,” Ballon said.

He scored an important victory in the area himself last year by raising the First Amendment on behalf of a political news startup called Punchbowl News to defeat a trademark claim by an online invitation company also called Punchbowl. Punchbowl, Inc. v. AJ Press, Inc., 52 F.4th 1091 (9th Cir., 2022).

“I feel like 2023 will be a very interesting year for me,” he said. “It depends on how the Supreme Court decides all these cases.”

— Don DeBenedictis