hiQ Labs, Inc. v. Linkedin Corporation

San Francisco, California intellectual property lawyers represented the parties in a copyright dispute.





H1Q sought a preliminary injunction against Linkedin Corporation to prohibit it from denying H1Q access to publicly available member files on Linkedin's professional networking website.



Linkedin appealed the issuance of a preliminary injunction.



The Ninth Circuit affirmed and Linkedin sought review by the Supreme Court, which declined to grant cert.



On remand from the United States Supreme Court, the

panel affirmed the district court's order preliminarily

enjoining LinkedIn Corp. from denying hiQ Labs, Inc., a

data analytics company, access to publicly available member

profiles on LinkedIn's professional networking website.



The panel held that the district court did not abuse its

discretion in concluding on the preliminary injunction record

that hiQ currently had no viable way to remain in business

other than using LinkedIn public profile data for its

"Keeper” and "Skill Mapper” analytics services, and that

hiQ therefore had demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable

harm absent a preliminary injunction.



The panel concluded that the district court properly

determined that the balance of hardships tipped sharply in

hiQ's favor, when weighing the likelihood that hiQ would

go out of business against LinkedIn's assertion that an

injunction threatened its members' privacy and therefore put

at risk the goodwill that LinkedIn had developed with its

members.



The panel concluded that hiQ showed a sufficient

likelihood of establishing the elements of its claim for

intentional interference with contract, and it raised a serious

question on the merits of LinkedIn's affirmative justification

defense. Further, hiQ raised serious questions about whether

LinkedIn could invoke the CFAA to preempt hiQ's possibly

meritorious tortious interference claim. The CFAA

prohibits accessing a "protected computer” without

authorization. The panel concluded that to scrape LinkedIn

data, hiQ needed to access LinkedIn servers, which were

"protected computers.” At issue was whether, once hiQ

received LinkedIn's cease-and-desist letter, any further

scraping and use of LinkedIn's data was "without

authorization” within the meaning of the CFAA. The panel

concluded that hiQ raised a serious question as to whether

the CFAA "without authorization” concept is inapplicable

where, as here, prior authorization is not generally required

but a particular person—or bot—is refused access. The

panel concluded that the reasoning of Van Buren reinforced

its interpretation of the CFAA, although Van Buren did not

directly address the CFAA's "without authorization” clause,

but rather considered the statute's "exceeds authorized

access” clause.

The panel affirmed the district court’s determination that

hiQ had established the elements required for a preliminary

injunction and remanded for further proceedings.