Thomas v. Apple

Background

Caze D. Thomas proceeded without a lawyer and under the court’s permission to file without paying fees. He sued Meta, Bluesky, Discord, Xiomi, Apple, Tik Tok, Mark Zuckerburg, and Jack Dorsey. Thomas alleged that the defendants used or claimed ownership of his intellectual property without permission. His allegations concerned a social-networking platform he called the “collection plate, scrolls, and ZeyHaloNation,” a system called the “Halo node,” a headset, video-call captioning, and other technologies.

Thomas identified copyright infringement and state-law theories including trade-dress infringement, unjust enrichment, unfair or unjust competition, and tortious interference. He stated that he was not bringing trademark claims because his trademark was pending and was not bringing patent claims because his patents were abandoned. He sought injunctive relief, money damages, removal of the allegedly unauthorized intellectual property, and public recognition that he created and owned the services, products, and technologies at issue.

The court had previously dismissed Thomas’s original complaint for failure to state a claim but allowed him time to file an amended complaint. Thomas then filed the amended complaint that the court considered in this order.

Copyright claims

The court treated the amended complaint as asserting copyright-infringement claims. To state such a claim, a plaintiff must allege ownership of a valid copyright and infringement by the defendant. Although copyright registration is not required for a work to receive copyright protection, registration or preregistration is required before bringing a copyright-infringement action involving a United States work in federal court.

Thomas did not allege that he had registered any of the intellectual property that he said the defendants infringed. He stated instead that he had requested and submitted a copyright registration for a 2023 data archive consisting of tens of thousands of pages. The court found that this allegation did not show registration of the intellectual property involved in his claims. It therefore dismissed the copyright claims for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii).

State-law claims

After dismissing the federal copyright claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction—the court’s authority to hear related state-law claims—over any state-law claims Thomas might be asserting. The court cited the general principle that a federal court ordinarily should decline supplemental jurisdiction when the federal claims have been dismissed at an early stage and only state-law claims remain.

Further amendment and disposition

The court noted that Thomas had filed multiple earlier copyright cases in the district and had previously been informed about the need to allege copyright ownership or registration. Referring to that history, the court found that Thomas should have been aware of the elements of a copyright claim when he filed this action. Because he had already amended once and the court determined that another amendment could not cure the defects, it declined to grant further leave to amend.

Judge Laura Taylor Swain dismissed the action for failure to state a claim, declined supplemental jurisdiction over any state-law claims, and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment dismissing the action. The court certified that any appeal would not be taken in good faith and denied permission to proceed without paying fees for purposes of an appeal.