A US appeals court has upheld the dismissal of a patent lawsuit against Live Nation, Ticketmaster, and Major League Baseball.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which hears patent appeals from courts across the country, issued its nonprecedential ruling on Monday (October 26).
It found that plaintiff Amy Weissbrod Gurvey had waived her arguments on appeal because she failed to oppose the defendants’ requests to dismiss the case in the lower court.
The Federal Circuit’s opinion can be read in full here.
The defendants also include Live Nation Inc. (Live Nation’s corporate name before its 2010 merger with Ticketmaster), Instant Live Concerts, MLB Advanced Media, and Phish Inc./Live Phish.
Law firms Baker Botts, Hinshaw & Culbertson, and Sheppard Mullin were named too, along with Steven Schortgen, a Sheppard Mullin attorney who represented Live Nation and several other defendants in the appeal.
A fourth law firm, Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, which once represented Gurvey, is also a defendant in the case but is not a party to the appeal.
According to the Federal Circuit, Gurvey “purports to own several U.S. patents which generally describe a ticketing and sports betting management system.”
“Since at least 2006, Ms. Gurvey has filed a series of complaints in both federal and state courts alleging that various combinations of [the defendants] infringed her patents, conspired to do so, or conspired to deny her access to the court system,” the ruling states.
Gurvey filed the lawsuit in federal court in Los Angeles on June 2, 2023, and the defendants asked the court to dismiss it.
She missed the court’s 14-day deadline to oppose those requests.
The court extended the deadline to February 2, 2024, for most of the requests, but Gurvey still did not file any opposition.
On September 27, 2024, the district court dismissed the case against every defendant in the appeal except Baker Botts.
That ruling came more than a year after most of the defendants had filed their motions, the appeals court pointed out.
The lower court noted that Gurvey “simply failed to file any opposition in advance of the scheduled hearing.”
On March 13, 2025, the district court denied Gurvey’s motion for reconsideration and granted Baker Botts’ own request to dismiss.
Although Gurvey had not substantively opposed that request either, the court addressed it on the merits and found the claims against Baker Botts barred by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, a legal principle that shields parties from liability for petitioning the government, including through lawsuits.
On appeal, Gurvey argued that the lower court had thrown out her complaint on its own initiative, rather than at the defendants’ request.
“Ms. Gurvey raises two issues on appeal but both miss the point,” the Federal Circuit wrote.
“Ms. Gurvey not only failed to timely respond to the motions to dismiss within the default fourteen-day deadline, but she failed to respond after the district court gave her a lengthy extension,” the opinion reads.
The Federal Circuit said the lower court had “simply granted unopposed motions to dismiss pursuant to the district’s Local Rules after giving Ms. Gurvey repeated chances to cure her failure.”
Because Gurvey did not make her arguments in the lower court, the appeals court ruled that she could not make them for the first time on appeal.
“Ms. Gurvey has waived all arguments,” the court wrote.
It added that she had also waived any challenge to the Baker Botts ruling because she did not dispute the lower court’s Noerr-Pennington finding on appeal.
Gurvey represented herself in the appeal.
“In her filings, Ms. Gurvey repeatedly emphasizes that she is a California attorney in good standing,” the opinion states. “Her extensive litigation history in both this case and the related New York cases demonstrates that Ms. Gurvey is well acquainted with trial court litigation.
“Her failure to respond cannot be attributed to an oversight by an inexperienced pro se litigant.”
The Federal Circuit did not rule on whether any of the defendants infringed Gurvey’s patents.
Gurvey’s legal dispute with Live Nation dates back to February 2006, when she filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York.
That case targeted Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, along with Clear Channel Communications, Live Nation, and Instant Live Concerts, according to a 2012 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Gurvey alleged that the firm had disclosed her trade secrets and other confidential information to Clear Channel and Live Nation, costing her the chance to sell shares in her own company through a private offering.
An amended complaint filed in 2008 added Michael Gordon, the bass guitarist for Phish, as a defendant.
The New York court dismissed the claims against Live Nation and Clear Channel in March 2009, ruling that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the two companies.
It threw out the rest of the complaint in April 2009.
In 2012, the Second Circuit revived only Gurvey’s malpractice and related claims against Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman and several of its attorneys.
Those claims were later rejected as having been brought too late, a decision the Second Circuit upheld in December 2018.
Baker Botts represented Live Nation in the 2012 appeal, while Hinshaw & Culbertson represented Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman.
Steven Schortgen, now at Sheppard Mullin, represented Live Nation and Clear Channel in the New York case while at Baker Botts.
The appeals court’s decision comes as Live Nation and Ticketmaster fight two cases brought by US states and federal regulators.
In April 2026, a federal jury in Manhattan found that the companies had illegally monopolized primary ticketing at major US concert venues, in a case pressed by 33 states and the District of Columbia.
The jury found that fans had been overcharged by USD $1.72 per ticket at major concert venues in 22 states and the District of Columbia.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster have since asked the court to throw out that verdict, or to order a new trial. The judge has yet to rule on either request.
The judge who dismissed Gurvey’s case, Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, is also presiding over a lawsuit against Live Nation and Ticketmaster brought by the US Federal Trade Commission and seven states.
On September 28, 2026, she rejected the companies’ request to dismiss that case, which alleges, among other things, that Ticketmaster let brokers exceed artists’ ticket limits and then profited from the resales.
Live Nation and Ticketmaster have since denied the FTC’s claims in a court filing that called the lawsuit “misguided.”
MBW has contacted Live Nation and Amy Weissbrod Gurvey for comment.Music Business Worldwide
