Intellectual Property

  • December 09, 2024

    Meet The Attys Arguing Over Trademark Liability At High Court

    A Gibson Dunn partner who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court 27 times will square off against the former solicitor general of West Virginia in a high court fight Wednesday over whether corporate affiliates must pay a real estate development company's $46.6 million trademark infringement judgment when they are not parties in the case.

  • December 09, 2024

    Campbell's Accuses Rival Of Copying Iconic Can Design

    The Campbell's Co. is accusing a competitor of copying the soup giant's "famous and iconic" can design, claiming in a New Jersey federal court complaint that the other company intentionally leveraged the mimicry to its benefit.

  • December 09, 2024

    Condom Co. Says Rival Owes $744K In 'Naked' IP Dispute

    A U.S.-based condom company told a Florida federal judge during a bench trial on Monday that an Australian rival owes at least $744,000 in attorney fees after losing in a dispute over use of the trademark "naked," saying the two had made a formal agreement but didn't memorialize it in writing.

  • December 09, 2024

    Verizon, Ericsson Agree To Settle Co.'s Wireless IP Row In EDTX

    Verizon Wireless and Ericsson have agreed to a deal that will end a suit accusing them of infringing a pair of wireless network patents owned by a Dallas patent business, a move that came after the first day of a retrial in the case.

  • December 09, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs Priceline, Booking's Patent Case Win

    The Federal Circuit on Monday backed a Delaware federal court's ruling that Priceline.com LLC and Booking.com did not infringe an e-commerce patent, agreeing with how a judge construed key claim terms.

  • December 09, 2024

    Ga. Attys Urge Companies To Develop Generative AI Policies

    Companies need to develop policies mitigating the effects of generative artificial intelligence as the tool is already impacting contracts and other aspects of business across nearly every industry, attorneys said Monday at a State Bar of Georgia panel.

  • December 09, 2024

    Boies Schiller Adds 2 Litigators In New York, San Francisco

    Boies Schiller Flexner LLP has hired two litigators for its New York and San Francisco offices, the firm announced Monday.

  • December 09, 2024

    MLB Can't Duck Digital Ticket IP Suit Despite Plaintiff Swap

    A New York federal judge declined to toss a digital ticketing patent holder's amended infringement complaint against Major League Baseball's interactive division, reasoning that the complaint was still valid even though the inventor substituted his company as the plaintiff.

  • December 09, 2024

    Pa. Fudge Maker Seeks Atty Fees In 'Moonshine' TM Fight

    Even though a Pennsylvania jury had found that Local Yokels Fudge and Christopher Warman's ex-wife had copied his secret "Chocolate Moonshine" fudge recipe, the defendants want Warman to pay some of their legal bills because they say he made frivolous trademark claims and falsely claimed they were still using the recipe after the 2023 trial.

  • December 09, 2024

    Anti-China Bias Tainted ADI Trade Secrets Case, 1st Circ. Told

    A former Analog Devices Inc. microchip engineer convicted of pilfering valuable design schematics to launch a competing business has told the First Circuit the government singled him out for prosecution due to his Chinese ethnicity and investigators' hopes he would turn out to be a foreign spy.

  • December 09, 2024

    High Court Won't Hear Zimmer Biomet Royalties Fight

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday shot down Zimmer Biomet Holdings' challenge to the Seventh Circuit's finding that the company shouldn't have stopped paying royalties on knee replacement devices it developed using an orthopedic surgeon's various patents after those patents expired.

  • December 07, 2024

    Up Next: Environmental Reviews, Wire Fraud & TM Awards

    The U.S. Supreme Court will hear its final set of oral arguments for the 2024 calendar year starting Monday, including disputes over the proper scope of federal environmental reviews and whether corporate affiliates can be ordered to pay disgorgement awards in trademark infringement disputes.

  • December 06, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Dissects Role of Corrected IP In Construction PGR

    A Federal Circuit panel on Friday worked through whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board had blocked a patent challenger from raising concerns about the validity of claims corrected during a post-grant review, and whether the corrected claims could be addressed in district court.

  • December 06, 2024

    Galderma Can't Undo Lupin's Skin Drug Win At Fed. Circ.

    Federal Circuit judges on Friday upheld a bench trial finding earlier this year that allowed an Indian generic-drug maker to start selling a treatment for a chronic skin condition that competes with a brand developed by Swiss skin care giant Galderma.

  • December 06, 2024

    High Court To Weigh $47M TM Award Liability For Non-Parties

    A trademark case before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday will delve into whether corporate affiliates of a real estate development company should be liable for an infringement judgment of nearly $47 million, even though they were not named defendants in the litigation.

  • December 06, 2024

    9th Circ. Won't Revisit CR Bard's Patent Misuse Win

    The Ninth Circuit declined Friday to rethink its holding that C.R. Bard was allowed to seek royalties on sales of a vascular stent after a U.S. patent had expired, rejecting Atrium Medical Corp.'s rehearing bid in the $53 million bench trial appeal.

  • December 06, 2024

    2nd Circ. Won't Revisit Sheeran's 'Let's Get It On' Win

    The Second Circuit won't rethink a panel's opinion that Ed Sheeran's hit "Thinking Out Loud" did not copy Marvin Gaye's classic "Let's Get It On," handing a loss to Structured Asset Sales LLC.

  • December 06, 2024

    PTAB Axes Patent Claims In Scrapped $583M Verizon Verdict

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled that Verizon was able to show that two claims in a General Access Solutions wireless network patent were invalid, the latest action in a larger legal battle between the parties.

  • December 06, 2024

    Patent Litigation Funders 'Fleeing' Del. Court, Study Says

    Patent cases in Delaware federal court have dropped by 41% since Delaware's Chief U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly issued disclosure rules in 2022, and litigation-funded cases there "have virtually dried up," according to a Utah law professor's study.

  • December 06, 2024

    OpenAI Unveils Plans To Ask JPML To Centralize IP Suits

    OpenAI Inc. informed New York and California federal courts this week it plans to ask the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to centralize eight copyright infringement and Digital Millennium Copyright Act lawsuits — including a proposed class action — brought by content creators and publishers.

  • December 06, 2024

    Off The Bench: Kyrie Irving Sued, Golf's New Transgender Ban

    In this week's Off The Bench, the New York Knicks and Rangers sue the unknown masses of people selling counterfeit team gear, a therapist who put on a family retreat for Kyrie Irving sues him over the bill, and two major golf organizations block transgender players from women's tournaments.

  • December 06, 2024

    New Balance Hit With Patent Suit Over Track Cleats

    A Texas patent holder sued New Balance in Massachusetts federal court Friday, alleging that four models in New Balance's FuelCell SuperComp line of cleated running shoes are similar to its design for sneakers that include composite or laminate materials.

  • December 06, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs $25K Sanction In Stun Device Design IP Suit

    The Federal Circuit said Friday that a lower court did nothing wrong in ordering stun device maker PS Products Inc. to pay $25,000 as a sanction for filing what the circuit court said was a "nuisance" patent infringement lawsuit against a rival manufacturer.

  • December 06, 2024

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen Burberry file a copyright claim against discount store B&M, the former owner of Charlton Athletic file a debt claim against the football club, and British Airways and the U.K. government face a class action brought by flight passengers taken hostage at the start of the First Gulf War. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • December 05, 2024

    Jane Street Ends Trade Secret Fight With Rival Investing Firm

    Jane Street Group LLC and Millennium Management LLC have agreed to put to rest their trade secrets dispute over a proprietary trading strategy, according to a joint stipulation of dismissal filed Thursday in New York federal court.

Expert Analysis

  • What Fed. Circ. Ruling Means For Patent Case Dismissals

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    ​​​​​​​The Federal Circuit's recent decision in UTTO v. Metrotech is significant because it specifically authorizes district courts to dismiss patent infringement lawsuits without a separate Markman hearing, but only when the meaning of a claim term is clear and case-dispositive, says Peter Gergely at Merchant & Gould.

  • The Fed. Circ. In October: Anti-Suit Injunctions And SEPs

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    The Federal Circuit's holding in Ericsson v. Lenovo, a complex global case involving standard-essential patents, will likely have broad consequences for practitioners, including by making it easier to obtain an anti-suit injunction, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Declaring Unexpected Results: Pitfalls For Rule 132 At PTAB

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    Rule 132 declarations are frequently used in life sciences patent prosecution for rebutting obviousness rejections by establishing that an applicant's invention produces unexpected results, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's Eidschun ruling highlights when this important tool may be ineffective, say attorneys at Morrison Foerster.

  • IP Ruling Likely To Limit Arguments Against Qualified Experts

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Osseo v. Planmeca, clarifying when experts may offer testimony from the perspective of a skilled artisan, provides helpful guidance on expert qualifications and could quash future timing arguments regarding declarants' expertise, says Whitney Jenkins at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Dissecting The Obviousness-Type Double Patenting Debate

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Allergan v. MSN highlights the ongoing evolution of the obviousness-type double patenting doctrine, revealing increasing tension between expiration-based interpretations and procedural flexibility, says Jeremy Lowe at Leydig Voit.

  • Series

    Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

  • 9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims

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    A recent Ninth Circuit ruling that a law firm did not infringe upon a competitor’s trademarks by paying Google to promote its website when users searched for the rival’s name signals that plaintiffs likely can no longer win infringement suits by claiming competitive keyword advertising confuses internet-savvy consumers, say attorneys at Mitchell Silberberg.

  • Trump Patent Policy May Be Headed In Unexpected Direction

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    While commentators have assumed that the patent policy of President-elect Donald Trump's second administration will largely mirror the pro-patent policy of his first, these predictions fail to take into account the likely oversized influence of Elon Musk, says Jorge Contreras at the University of Utah.

  • Best Practices For Influencer Trademark Protection

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    Though the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board recently decided that an influencer couldn't qualify for a retail services trademark registration for posting affiliate links to a third-party website, there are other trademark protections that influencers can pursue for their branding and marketing services, say attorneys at Nixon Peabody.

  • What Trump's Next Term May Mean For Biz Immigration

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    Leonard D'Arrigo at Harris Beach discusses the employment-based immigration policies businesses can potentially expect during President-elect Donald Trump’s second term, based on policies enacted during his first administration, statements made during his campaign and proposals in Project 2025.

  • Racing Patents To The Fed. Circ.: Collateral Estoppel Lessons

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    As more and more parties find themselves in two different forums addressing the same issues and then competing in a race to the Federal Circuit, certain strategies can help despite unanswered questions on when Patent Trial and Appeal Board determinations trigger collateral estoppel, say attorneys at Akin.

  • Series

    Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Performing circus arts has strengthened my ability to be more thoughtful, confident and grounded, all of which has enhanced my legal practice and allowed me to serve clients in a more meaningful way, says Bailey McGowan at Stinson.

  • Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights

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    A federal court's finding that "MetaBirkin" nonfungible tokens infringed on Hermes' iconic Birkin bag imagery is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and the order will have a lasting effect on how courts balance trademark rights and the First Amendment, say attorneys at Venable.

  • OpenAI's Patent Pledge Is Not All It Seems

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    A recent statement that OpenAI won't assert its own patents is more of an aspiration than an obligation, and should prompt practitioners to think deeply about the underlying legal mechanisms of patent and contract law when determining the effectiveness of similar nonassertion pledges, say attorneys at McDonnell Boehnen.

  • 3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

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    Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

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