Intellectual Property

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Patent Cases To Watch In 2025

The Federal Circuit has taken on a rare en banc patent case looking at damages, while the U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to review when foreign damages can be incorporated into patent awards. Here's what you need to know about these cases and others that attorneys are keeping an eye on in 2025.
January 10, 2025
Funkadelic Keyboardist Fights Sanctions Bid In Royalty Dispute

The widow of Parliament-Funkadelic's founding keyboardist told a Michigan federal judge Friday that she should not be sanctioned in a royalty dispute with bandleader George Clinton, saying she didn't try to hide what she said is an irrelevant settlement agreement with a record company.
January 10, 2025
Microscope Co. Didn't Infringe UMich Patent, Judge Finds

A California federal judge has held that German microscope company Leica Microsystems Inc. didn't infringe a patent issued to the University of Michigan that covers a new way of measuring fluorescence.
January 10, 2025
No Ulterior Motive In Anschutz's Secrets Suit, Judge Says

A Colorado state judge rejected a Denver oil prospector's claim that Anschutz Exploration Corp. abused the judicial process by suing him for sharing allegedly confidential well production information, finding there was no evidence Anschutz filed the trade secrets claims with an ulterior motive.
January 10, 2025
Off The Bench: Venu Deal Off, Fox Suit, Gender Rules Wobble

In this week's Off The Bench, a last-minute merger ends litigation over the new sports streaming service Venu, only for its backers to mothball the project entirely, Fox Sports is rocked by lurid sexual harassment claims, and a federal judge knocks down an attempt to expand transgender discrimination protections.
January 10, 2025
NC Machinery Co. Says Rival Lied To Hide Trade Secrets Theft

A North Carolina machining tools manufacturer is suing the American arm of its Germany-based rival in state Business Court, claiming the competitor has been hiring away its talent to acquire its trade secrets and then misrepresenting its job descriptions to hide the alleged scheme.
January 10, 2025
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

This past week in London has seen legal services group RBG Holdings face a winding-up petition from founder Ian Rosenblatt amid soured talks about the group's leadership, J.P. Morgan file a fresh claim against WeRealize, retailer Asda face an intellectual property claim over a specific type of mandarin and financier Nathaniel Rothschild sue German entrepreneur Lars Windhorst and his investment vehicle Tennor International. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
January 09, 2025
Catalyst Settles Patent Fight Against Teva Over Firdapse

Florida-based Catalyst Pharmaceuticals Inc. has reached a settlement with Teva in a patent infringement battle in New Jersey federal court over its U.S. flagship commercial drug that treats a rare autoimmune disease that will provide Teva with a license to market a generic version of the drug in 2035, the company announced Thursday.
January 09, 2025
IP Forecast: OpenAI, Microsoft Look To Toss NYT Case

OpenAI and its backers at Microsoft will try persuading a New York judge to dismiss one of the major copyright suits against them, with arguments that using news stories to train the startup's artificial intelligence model is a "transformative" use. Here's a spotlight on where that case stands — plus all the other major intellectual property matters on deck in the coming week.
January 09, 2025
Maryland Judge Trims Oil Refining IP Suit Ahead Of Trial

A Maryland federal judge has determined chemical company W.R. Grace made false statements when publicly comparing its product to competitor G.W. Aru, but left most questions of injury, invalidity and additional infringement for a May trial.
January 09, 2025
Amazon Loses Bad Faith Claims Against Nokia At ITC

A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has shot down Amazon's arguments that Nokia failed to offer reasonable or nondiscriminatory patent license terms, ruling instead that Amazon was infringing a series of Nokia patents related to video technology.
January 09, 2025
Vape Laptop Hacking Suit Belongs In Court, Co. Says

A vape-maker has urged a California federal court to deny a bid by the founder of vape distributor Next Level to arbitrate the manufacturer's claims that he broke into a laptop to access its confidential information, saying he's not a signatory to an underlying arbitration agreement.
January 09, 2025
Amgen Says Enbrel Protected By Legit Patents, Rulings

Amgen has asked a Virginia federal judge to permanently toss the latest version of a proposed class action accusing it of illegally entrenching and expanding patent rights to stave off cheaper competition for Enbrel, arguing the blockbuster arthritis treatment is protected by legitimate patents and court rulings of validity.
January 09, 2025
Inventor Group Warns Of Issa's Return As House IP Panel Chair

Policy outfit US Inventor Inc. has spoken out against the return of Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to head the U.S. House subcommittee overseeing intellectual property in the new Congress, warning on Thursday Issa's leadership role will have distressing affects on American startups and innovators while benefiting foreign competitors in other countries like China.
January 09, 2025
Judge Rips Meta's 'Grossly Overbroad' AI Sealing Requests

A California federal judge appeared open Thursday to allowing authors to amend their copyright infringement proposed class action to include allegations Meta nefariously removed copyright disclaimers from tens of millions of books in creating its Llama artificial intelligence product, while criticizing Meta's "grossly overbroad" sealing requests as illegitimate attempts at avoiding bad publicity.
January 09, 2025
Cancer Org Fails To Get Rival's TM Counterclaims Tossed

A Georgia federal judge said Thursday that the Glioblastoma Foundation Inc. can't yet escape a series of counterclaims filed against it by a rival nonprofit amid a trademark spat, ruling that its defenses in a dismissal bid largely relied on factual issues about whether the rival fraudulently obtained the marks at issue.
January 09, 2025
Whiskey Maker Says 'Landry' Name Use 'Isn't Just About Me'

The owner of a whiskey company accused of ripping off the name used by a host of hospitality brands owned by Houston billionaire Tilman Fertitta testified that he started his company with the honest belief that the name "Landry" was available for use for liquor sales.
January 09, 2025
NCAA Insists Player Seeking One More Season Is Out Of Time

A former junior-college basketball player seeking to play one more season is not entitled to do so because he has played the maximum number of seasons allowed, the NCAA told a Mississippi federal court in defense of the eligibility policy the player seeks to upend.
January 09, 2025
SPEX's Data Security Patent Award Boosted To $553M

A California federal judge has tacked on about $237 million in interest to the $316 million damages verdict SPEX Technologies won after a jury found Western Digital infringed a patent related to hardware encryption technology.
January 09, 2025
Meta Gets Partial PTAB Win On 2 Electronic Device Patents

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found that Meta Platforms Inc. was able to show that some claims in a pair of Eight kHz LLC patents were not valid, but upheld many other claims as part of a larger intellectual property fight between the parties.
January 09, 2025
Patterson Belknap Brings On IP Litigator From Davis Polk

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP's New York office has welcomed a patent litigator, who brings nearly a decade of experience, including most recently as counsel at Davis Polk, as its newest partner.
January 09, 2025
Trump Campaign Urges Ga. Court To End Isaac Hayes IP Fight

President-elect Donald Trump and his campaign have asked a Georgia federal court to toss copyright claims brought by the estate and heirs of soul music singer Isaac Hayes over the alleged unauthorized use of the 1966 song "Hold On, I'm Comin'" at campaign events.
January 09, 2025
Beer Sales Rep Can't Show Lasting Harm From Noncompete

A former Boston Beer Co. sales employee challenging a one-year noncompete agreement has failed to show how she will suffer irreparable harm without a preliminary injunction, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying any damages are "readily calculable" if she ultimately wins the case.
January 09, 2025
BakerHostetler Adds 3 Attys In DC, Chicago Offices

A trio of attorneys have moved to BakerHostetler, two of whom work with immigration-related labor and employment matters in Chicago, and another based in the nation's capital, who focuses on trademark and copyrighted intellectual property matters, the firm announced Wednesday.
January 09, 2025
Rooftop Owner Can't Strike Out Chicago Cubs' Ticket Suit

A rooftop venue owner accused of selling tickets to Chicago Cubs games and other events without a license cannot ditch the lawsuit and redirect its claims to arbitration because he brought the wrong motion to do so, an Illinois federal judge said Tuesday.
January 09, 2025
Vape Biz Sues Rival For 'Vapestop' TM Infringement

A vape store has accused a rival distributor of copying its branding to take advantage of its better-cemented reputation in the market and steal potential customers away.

Editor's Picks

Why Many Drugs Remain Pricey 40 Years After Hatch-Waxman

In the four decades since Congress passed the Hatch-Waxman Act in an effort to make generic drugs more available, the pharmaceutical industry has used patent thickets, "evergreening" and pay-for-delay tactics to block competition and keep prices of life-saving specialty drugs astronomical, several legal experts told Law360, while the industry argues other parties shoulder more of the blame.
Full Fed. Circ. Looks To Clarify Damages In Google Case

The full Federal Circuit has agreed to review EcoFactor's $20 million infringement award against Google, a move that attorneys say should provide much-needed guidance for both judges and parties when calculating damages.
Who Wore '8' Better? Jackson, Aikman Locked In TM Battle

Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson is banking his popularity will make consumers think of him when they see the number "8" on products he sells, but a beer company associated with Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman — who wore the same jersey number — doesn't see it that way, as the players square off in a trademark fight.

Expert Analysis

Penn State Brand Case Leaves Ornamentality Unresolved

While the recent jury verdict in Penn State University v. Vintage Brand was a win for the college and brands, legal practitioners should expect plenty of litigation around unaddressed ornamentality issues of whether marks that are not yet incontestable can be canceled for being used solely in decorative, non-source-identifying ways, say attorneys at Debevoise.
Defense Strategies For Addressing Conspiracy-Minded Jurors

As conspiracy theories continue to proliferate and gain traction in the U.S., defense attorneys will need to consider ways to keep conspiracy-minded jurors from sitting on the jury, and to persuade them when this isn’t possible, say consultants at IMS Legal Strategies.
7 Ways 2nd Trump Administration May Affect Partner Hiring

President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House will likely have a number of downstream effects on partner hiring in the legal industry, from accelerated hiring timelines to increased vetting of prospective employees, say recruiters at Macrae.
Reviewing 2024's AI Patent And Copyright Developments

Attorneys at Rothwell Figg provide highlights on procedural and substantive intellectual property issues pertaining to AI in 2024 from the Copyright Office and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, followed by what to expect in 2025.
Trump, Tariffs And Tech: The Right To Repair In 2025

The "right-to-repair" movement has helped make it easier for independent repair shops and consumers to repair their devices and vehicles — but President-elect Donald Trump's complicated relationship with Big Tech, and his advocacy for increased tariffs, make the immediate future of the movement uncertain, say attorneys at Carter Ledyard.
E-Discovery Quarterly: Rulings On Custodian Selection

Several recent rulings make clear that the proportionality of additional proposed custodians will depend on whether the custodians have unique relevant documents, and producing parties should consider whether information already in the record will show that they have relevant documents that otherwise might not be produced, say attorneys at Sidley.
Fed. Circ. Patent Decisions In 2024: An Empirical Review

Despite an ever-increasing backlog of argument-ready cases, the Federal Circuit issued fewer decisions in 2024 than in previous years, and the decisions' overall friendliness toward patent owners and applicants was low, says Dan Bagatell at Perkins Coie.
What To Expect In Higher Ed Enforcement Under Trump

Colleges and universities should prepare for shifting priorities, as President-elect Donald Trump is likely to focus less on antitrust cases and more on foreign relations policy, while congressional oversight of higher education continues to increase, say attorneys at Steptoe.
How Trial Attys Can Wield Amended Federal Evidence Rules

Trial lawyers should assess recent amendments to four Federal Rules of Evidence and a newly enacted rule on illustrative aids to determine how to best use the rules to enhance pretrial discovery and trial strategy, says Stewart Edelstein, former litigation chair at Cohen & Wolf.
Series

Exercising On My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

While I originally came to the Peloton bike for exercise, one cycling instructor’s teachings have come to serve as a road map for practicing law thoughtfully and mindfully, which has opened opportunities for growth and change in my career, says Andrea Kirshenbaum at Littler.
5 Drug And Device Developments That Shaped 2024

The last year saw significant legal developments affecting drug and device manufacturers, with landmark decisions and regulatory changes that require vigilance and agility from the industry, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.
Rejoinder Strategy After Allergan Double-Patenting Case

A closer look at last year's Allergan v. MSN case at the Federal Circuit highlights the importance of rejoinder during patent prosecution in view of the risks associated with obviousness-type double patenting based on later-filed applications in the same patent family, say attorneys at BCLP.
7 Pitfalls To Watch In Tech Referral Fee Programs

The recent attempt by FluidStack to recover $10 million in referral fees allegedly promised by software vendor Denvr Dataworks should alert potential participants in so-called partnership programs to seven signs that a proposed technology referral agreement may not equally benefit all sides, says Chris Wlach at Huge Inc.
Takeaways From 2024's Emerging IP Licensing Trends

Themes in intellectual property licensing from the past year – including artificial intelligence; risk management; and name, image and likeness rights – highlight key considerations for navigating an evolving landscape, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
Top 10 Legal Issues This Year For Transportation Industry GCs

General counsel must carefully consider numerous legal and policy challenges facing the automotive and transportation industry in the year to come, especially while navigating new technologies, regulations and global markets, says Francesco Liberatore at Squire Patton.