No, that's the whole point. The lawsuit started in California, but Vizio tried to move it to federal court claiming that since it was a copyright claim it belonged in Federal court and not in state court.
The federal court said that because this was a contract issue, not just a copyright concern, that copyright law could not be used to bypass the contract law to move the case to federal court.
>The May 13 ruling by the Honorable Josephine L. Staton stated that the claim from Software Freedom Conservancy succeeded in the “extra element test” and was not preempted by copyright claims, and the court finds “that the enforcement of ‘an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws’ amounts to an ‘extra element,’ and therefore, SFC's claims are not preempted.“
It's a District court. This is specific to California by nature of the jurisdiction. The finding of the Honorable Josephine L. Staton is, an element of that case, not the ruling. This will end up in the Appellate.
It's a good first step, but don't overstate the facts.
Maybe, but that isn't clear. They will try to appeal, but it isn't clear if the appeals court will accept the appeal. If the court doesn't accept the appeal, then all courts will be informed about this for future cases as lawyers try to build their case before whatever court they are in front of. If it is appealed, then whatever the final appeal result is will win (final appeal can be different in different courts so there could be conflicts until the supreme court takes this.).
My guess is the appeals court won't take this. Just a guess though.
The federal court said that because this was a contract issue, not just a copyright concern, that copyright law could not be used to bypass the contract law to move the case to federal court.
>The May 13 ruling by the Honorable Josephine L. Staton stated that the claim from Software Freedom Conservancy succeeded in the “extra element test” and was not preempted by copyright claims, and the court finds “that the enforcement of ‘an additional contractual promise separate and distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws’ amounts to an ‘extra element,’ and therefore, SFC's claims are not preempted.“
This isn't California specific at all.