Intellectual Property

  • March 12, 2025

    Venable Adds 2 Patent Partners From Axinn In San Francisco

    Venable LLP has hired two technology-focused partners from Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP to expand its intellectual property team in San Francisco.

  • March 11, 2025

    Medical Device Co. Seeks Fed. Circ. Redo Over Patent Trial

    A medical device manufacturer is asking the full Federal Circuit to reconsider a panel decision reviving a patent infringement case against it, arguing a lower court judge was fine to allow tardy testimony from a witness who took its side.

  • March 11, 2025

    George Clinton Brings New IP Theft Suit Against Longtime Foe

    George Clinton sued music executive Armen Boladian for copyright theft and civil fraud in Florida federal court Tuesday, the latest in a long-running legal battle over royalties between the Parliament-Funkadelic front man and his onetime business partner.

  • March 11, 2025

    USPTO Acting Director To Review Bitcoin, Railway Patents

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's current acting director made some of her first moves wading into patent board rulings, deciding last week to take a closer look at two board decisions involving blockchain mines and railway signs.

  • March 11, 2025

    Ex-USPTO Head Can't Be Expert In Walmart IP Fight, Co. Says

    A startup suing Walmart over trade secrets connected to shelf-freshness technology wants an Arkansas federal court to block the retailer from retaining former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal as an expert when the $115 million case moves forward to a retrial.

  • March 11, 2025

    More ITC Patent Cases Expected After Fed. Circ. 'Sea Change'

    A recent Federal Circuit decision discarding the U.S. International Trade Commission's limits on what types of domestic expenses qualify a company to bring a patent suit at the agency marks a pronounced shift that will likely spur considerably more ITC cases, attorneys say.

  • March 11, 2025

    Wendy's, Target Accused Of Infringing Online Ordering Patent

    Target and a group of chain restaurants including Wendy's, Applebee's and the Cheesecake Factory were hit with patent infringement lawsuits in Texas federal courts on Monday by Smart Order LLC, which accused them of infringing a patent covering a customer internet ordering system.

  • March 11, 2025

    HPE's IP Case Moves Ahead, With Chance To Fix Some Claims

    A California federal judge has given Hewlett Packard Enterprise a month to amend its patent infringement complaint against a group of companies and greenlit the IT giant to seek discovery on business one of them may have done in the state.

  • March 11, 2025

    Eli Lilly Suit Over Compounded Drugs Survives Dismissal

    A Washington federal judge has trimmed Eli Lilly's lawsuit against two Seattle-area clinics and the doctors who run them for allegedly duping consumers into buying copycat versions of its diabetes and weight loss medications Mounjaro and Zepbound, nixing the pharmaceutical giant's consumer protection claim while preserving its trademark infringement and false advertising allegations.

  • March 11, 2025

    Authors Seek Win On Meta AI Direct Infringement Claims

    A group of award-winning authors urged a California federal judge to grant them a win on claims Meta directly infringed their copyrights by using databases of pirated works to train its "Llama" artificial-intelligence tool, arguing Meta infringed "massive" amounts of protected material, including books written by Supreme Court justices.

  • March 11, 2025

    Software Co. Tells Fed. Circ. It's Owed Over $12.7M In IP Dispute

    A software developer pushed back at the federal government's defense of a $12.7 million copyright infringement award on Monday, telling the Federal Circuit that the judgment should be based on the company's actual negotiations with the Defense Health Agency.

  • March 11, 2025

    Netflix Gets 'Surviving R. Kelly' Libel Suit Tossed, For Now

    Netflix Inc. and Lifetime Entertainment Services won dismissal Tuesday of a defamation lawsuit alleging the latest iteration of their hit documentary series "Surviving R. Kelly" defamed a former assistant to the now-imprisoned R&B singer, although a Delaware federal judge gave the plaintiff another shot at pleading actual malice.

  • March 11, 2025

    ISP Asks Justices To Reverse Liability In Piracy Suit

    It's time for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and decide whether internet service providers can be liable for copyright infringement if they haven't done enough to stop their customers from pirating music, says an ISP that has been locked in one such legal battle for the better part of a decade.

  • March 11, 2025

    No Joke, Paramount's $11M Comic Royalty Deal Gets Prelim OK

    A New York federal judge gave a preliminary approval Tuesday to a settlement agreement in a putative class action that would see Paramount Global and the entity behind Comedy Central pay $11 million to 120 comedians to resolve allegations the media companies wrongly withheld royalty payments. 

  • March 11, 2025

    Google Trade Secrets Case Against Ex-Engineer Resolved

    A Texas federal judge closed Google LLC's trade secrets lawsuit against a former employee on Monday after the parties agreed last December to an injunction forbidding him from possessing or sharing any of the company's confidential information.

  • March 11, 2025

    Lego Competitor Asks 2nd Circ. To Allow Figurine Sales

    A Lego competitor on Tuesday urged a Second Circuit panel to reverse a Connecticut district judge's order blocking the sale of figurines designed to fit into the toy company's signature interlocking play system, arguing the threadbare directive improperly modified a prior injunction.

  • March 11, 2025

    Software Co. Says Ex-Employees Stole AI Trade Secrets

    A software company that uses artificial intelligence to automate appeals when insurers deny a healthcare provider's payment request has sued two former staffers, alleging they used confidential information gathered through their employment to launch a competing company.

  • March 11, 2025

    Full Fed. Circ. Won't Rehear $95M Altria Patent Suit Win

    The Federal Circuit won't hold an en banc review of a $95 million judgment against R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. that ended a suit from Altria Client Services LLC alleging that R.J. Reynolds infringed three of its patents.

  • March 11, 2025

    White House Names Ex-Goldman Sachs Atty To Lead USPTO

    U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated John Squires, Goldman Sachs' former longtime chief intellectual property counsel, to serve as the next U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director.

  • March 10, 2025

    Amgen, Fresenius Settle Osteoporosis Drug Patent Dispute

    Amgen Inc. and Fresenius Kabi USA have reached an agreement resolving Amgen's allegations that Fresenius infringed a long list of patents covering drugs for treating osteoporosis and preventing bone problems, according to an order issued Friday in New Jersey federal court.

  • March 10, 2025

    Meta Can't Ditch Authors' Copyright Claim In AI Tool Fight

    A California federal judge has refused to throw out group of authors' claim that Meta Platforms Inc. violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim with its large language model product, ruling that they've adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed copyright notice information to conceal infringement.

  • March 10, 2025

    Nike Receives $355K From Lululemon In Shoe Patent Trial

    A New York federal jury has found that athletic apparel maker Lululemon infringed one Nike footwear manufacturing patent but did not infringe a second, and awarded Nike $355,450 in damages, well below the $2.8 million the shoe giant was seeking.

  • March 10, 2025

    Realtek's Antitrust Claims Against MediaTek Pared Back

    A California federal judge on Friday dismissed Realtek Semiconductor's claims that MediaTek and two other companies conspired to restrain trade through a series of sham patent suits, while keeping claims tied to two 2021 federal cases in Texas that he said Realtek plausibly alleged to be baseless.

  • March 10, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Vacates PTAB Decision Partly Axing 4G Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Monday vacated a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision partly invalidating a Sisvel patent that the company says is essential to the 4G standard and has asserted against other businesses in infringement litigation.

  • March 10, 2025

    Alsup Refuses To Vacate Hearing Into OPM Mass Firings

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to vacate an upcoming evidentiary hearing into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's mass firings of probationary federal employees, and required OPM director Charles Ezell to appear in person or else be deposed.

Expert Analysis

  • In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

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    Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.

  • Improving Comms Between Trial Attys And Tech Witnesses

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    In major litigation involving complex technology, attorneys should employ certain strategies to collaborate with companies' technical personnel more effectively to enhance both the attorney's understanding of the subject matter and the expert's ability to provide effective testimony in court, say attorneys at Buchalter.

  • Navigating Title IX Compliance In The NIL Era

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    As universities push to move more name, image and likeness activity in-house, it's unclear how the NCAA and its members will square implementation of the House settlement with Title IX requirements, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • Series

    Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

  • DeepSeek AI Investigation Could Lead To IP Law Precedents

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    The investigation by OpenAI and Microsoft into DeepSeek's artificial intelligence model raises interesting legal concerns involving intellectual property and contract law, including potential trade secret appropriation and fair use questions, say Saishruti Mutneja and Raghav Gurbaxani.

  • Opinion

    New DOJ Leaders Should Curb Ill-Conceived Prosecutions

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    First-of-their-kind cases have seemingly led to a string of overly aggressive prosecutions in recent years, so newly sworn-in leaders of the U.S. Department of Justice should consider creating reporting channels to stop unwise prosecutions before they snowball, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • A Look At Drug Price Negotiation Program's Ongoing Impact

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    More than two years after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the rapid implementation of the drug price negotiation program, attorneys at Ropes & Gray discuss how the IRA has influenced licensing strategies, and how maximum fair prices under the law have economically affected certain drugs.

  • Opinion

    Congress Must Consider Accurate Data About Patent Thickets

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    If Congress revisits a controversial bill this year aimed at limiting the number of patents pharmaceutical manufacturers could assert, it must make sure to act based on accurate reports — such as a recent U.S. Patent and Trademark Office study that found no evidence of patent thicketing, says David Kappos at the Council for Innovation Promotion.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • Opinion

    DOGE Should Address Inefficiency In The Patent Marketplace

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    Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is well positioned to identify to Congress the necessary variability needed among individual patent rights, ensuring that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's current inefficiencies do not impede promising inventions from reaching the market, says John Powers at Powers IP.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • IP, Licensing, M&A Trends To Watch In Life Sciences This Year

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    2025 promises to continue an exciting trajectory for the life sciences industry, with major trends ranging from global harmonization of intellectual property to cross-border licensing activity and an increase of nontraditional financial participants in the mergers and acquisition space, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

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