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Law360 (March 17, 2020, 6:21 PM EDT) -- A week after relocating oral arguments in a closely watched copyright case over a mashup of Dr. Seuss and "Star Trek," the Ninth Circuit has decided to postpone the April hearing indefinitely amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.
The appeals court said Tuesday that the April 1 hearing — originally set for Seattle but moved to Pasadena last week because of the pandemic — would be "vacated pending further order of the court."
The order is one of many such postponements as courts around the country scramble to respond to the growing outbreak of the novel coronavirus. The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that its next two weeks of oral arguments would be postponed.
Unlike the high court, the Ninth Circuit is handling such argument delays on a case-by-case basis. The judges overseeing cases have discretion to postpone hearings, hold them telephonically, or scrap oral arguments entirely.
Monday's order came in a case filed by Dr. Seuss' estate against the authors of a comic book called "Oh, the Places You'll Boldly Go!" that combined Seuss' "Oh, the Places You'll Go!" with aspects of the Star Trek universe.
Last year, a federal trial judge ruled that the book was shielded from the lawsuit by copyright's fair use doctrine, even though it borrowed "liberally" from Seuss' famous book.
The estate quickly appealed the decision to the Ninth Circuit, where the case has drawn close interest from outside groups like the Motion Picture Association of America over its potential impact on fair use law.
Last week, the panel hearing the case ordered the hearing relocated from Seattle, one of the U.S. epicenters of the outbreak, to a federal courthouse near Los Angeles.
"The uncertainties of the outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) require an adjustment to the upcoming court calendar," the court wrote on Thursday.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises is represented by Tamar Y. Duvdevani, Stanley J. Panikowski and Andrew Deutsch of DLA Piper.
ComicMix is represented by Dan Booth of Dan Booth Law LLC.
The case is Dr. Seuss Enterprises LP v. ComicMix LLC et al., case number 19-55348, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
--Editing by Emily Kokoll.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
