Samuelson Clinic Featured on Wired Threat Level Blog for Amicus Brief Filed in Support of Accused Coupon Hacker

Samuelson Clinic student interns Hari O’Connell and Domenic Ippolito, with help from Clinic faculty Jennifer Lynch and Jason Schultz, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Elecronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in support of accused “coupon hacker” John Stottlemire’s motion to dismiss in the case Coupons, Inc. v. Stottlemire in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The Clinic argued that Coupons, Inc’s DMCA claims and common law trespass to chattels and conversion claims constitute a strained and improper interpretation of the law and should be dismissed. The Clinic’s brief was profiled on the Wired Blog at http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/cal-eff-come-to.html

O’Connell and Ippolito presented EFF’s arguments at the hearing on the Motion to Dismiss in mid-May, arguing for well over an hour against a seasoned litigator from San Francisco-based Farella, Braun & Martel who represented Coupons, Inc. The court has not yet issued its order in the case.