west sues CD-ROM producer

Posted with the permission of West's attorneys.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                           September 10, 1993

Press Inquiries:

Dorothy Molstad, West Publishing Company (612) 687-7617 Joe Musilek, Opperman Heins & Paquin (612) 339 6900 Charles Murphy, Vaughan & Murphy (404) 395 6550

WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY SUES ATLANTA-BASED LEGAL PUBLISHER

      MITCHELL GROSS FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND
         UNFAIR COMPETITION OVER FLORIDA CD-ROM

West Publishing Company, Eagan, Minnesota, filed suit today in U.S. District Court in Atlanta against Mitchell Gross and his legal publishing company, On Point Solutions, Inc. The suit alleges that On Point created and is selling a CD-ROM of Florida appellate court decisions misappropriated from West's copyrighted compilation of annotated judicial case reports, _Southern Reporter_ (TM). The suit alleges that On Point Solutions' CD-ROM infringes West's copyrights and constitutes unfair competition in violation of Georgia law.

"West has published reports of the opinions of state and federal
courts for more than 115 years, and always has registered its copyrights and trademarks in those publications, including _Southern Reporter_," said Vance K. Opperman, West's president.
"West expends substantial editorial effort in adding to the
opinions a variety of editorial features created by West's lawyer-editors," Opperman added.

The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction requiring On Point to stop selling its Florida CD-ROM. The lawsuit also seeks an award of damages resulting from the copying and payment by On Point and Gross of West's attorneys' fees in pursuing the lawsuit.

Gross and the corporate predecessor to On Point, OmniSearch Data Corporation, were sued earlier this year by Mead Data Central, publisher of a CD-ROM containing Georgia judicial decisions. Mead asserted in that suit that Gross and OmniSearch had created their product by unlawfully copying the Mead CD-ROM. The lawsuit was settled through entry of a consent judgment and injunction in favor of Mead that required Gross and OmniSearch to cease selling their Georgia disc and destroy all of the computer tapes created by the improper copying.

Charles Murphy, West's counsel in Atlanta, said, "You would have thought that Gross would have learned his lesson from the Mead lawsuit. Instead, as evidence of his willful disregard for copyright law and the law of unfair competition, Gross simply copied West's proprietary product and shifted his unlawful activities to Florida."

Joseph M. Musilek, West's Minnesota attorney, said that "We met with Gross in an effort to get him to voluntarily delete the misappropriated data from his product, and he was upfront in admitting that he created his product by scanning West's books." Received on Mon Sep 20 1993 - 18:37:04 GMT