NEW YORK-The injunction preventing Motorola Inc. from selling pagers that display NBA sports scores was overturned this month by a New York appeals court.
The National Basketball Association sued Motorola last spring, saying the real-time NBA sports scores transmitted over the SportsTrax network were not licensed or authorized by the league.
Motorola argued that SportsTrax was simply news reporting. A judge in U.S. District Court of Manhattan in July ruled in favor of the NBA. Motorola appealed.
However, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York reversed that decision. Motorola said the appeals court recognized that U.S. copyright laws pre-empt the kind of claims made by the NBA, affirming the right of Motorola to collect and disseminate facts that have been made public in a copyrighted television broadcast.
The pager provides a visual display of the ball’s movements during the game. STATS Inc. of Skokie, Ill., assembles the information.
