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Intellectual Property
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July 19, 2024
Apple Wants Litigation Funder To Explain Role In Patent Row
Apple Inc. wants a Delaware federal judge to order litigation funder Omni Bridgeway LLC to turn over documents explaining its relationship with Finnish company MPH Technologies Oy and its financial interest in MPH's ongoing patent litigation against Apple in California.
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July 19, 2024
UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London
This past week in London has seen a libel clash between comedian Paul Currie and the Soho Theatre Company over allegations of anti-semitism, technology giant Huawei face a patents claim by Mediatek, Westfield Europe pursue action against Clearpay Finance for contract breaches and tour operating company Carnival hit chartered airline Maleth Aero for significant flight delays. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.
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July 18, 2024
Abbott Wins Trust Asset Freeze To Collect $33M In TM Fight
A New York federal judge has agreed to freeze trusts tied to a couple who owe Abbott Laboratories $33.4 million in sprawling trademark litigation over gray-market diabetes test strips, finding an asset freeze is necessary due to the defendants' "pervasive and repeated" use of the trusts for personal expenses and gambling.
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July 18, 2024
CoComelon Seeks Atty Fees And Sanctions After $23M IP Win
The company behind the popular children's YouTube channel CoComelon urged a California federal judge Thursday to follow up its $23.4 million copyright trial win by ordering a Chinese rival to pay an additional $6.5 million in attorney fees and costs, plus $1 million more for the rival's litigation misconduct.
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July 18, 2024
Apple Wants 2 Trials In Masimo Trade Secrets And Patent Row
Apple has told a California federal judge that a November retrial in Masimo's suit against it should only cover claims including trade secrets that led to a mistrial last year after Masimo sought $1.85 billion, and that Masimo's patent claims should be tried later.
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July 18, 2024
Texas IP Firm Fights Microsoft With Dueling Sanctions Bid
Prolific patent litigator Bill Ramey has pushed back against Microsoft's bid to sanction his law firm in Texas federal court, filing his own sanctions motion that claims the tech giant and its attorney "gleefully" filed an improper declaration in the case to defame him and his firm.
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July 18, 2024
Vidal Backs 'Egregious Abuse' Findings Against Vaccine Maker
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal has upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision to punish Longhorn Vaccines & Diagnostics for "egregious abuse of the PTAB process," a status report in a Utah federal case indicates.
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July 18, 2024
Fed. Circ. OKs Gilstrap's Alice Ax Of Background Check Patent
The Federal Circuit on Thursday upheld Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap's invalidation of a background check patent for claiming only an abstract idea, as well as his refusal to award attorney fees to the small Texas city that prevailed in the case.
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July 18, 2024
Comcast Gets PTAB To Eye Patent Despite EDTX Trial
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board on Thursday said it will look into a petition by Comcast asking it to invalidate claims in a patent organizing "content on a display device" that is tied to a $338.7 million jury verdict and is being asserted in another case set to go to trial later this year.
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July 18, 2024
Google Warns Fed. Circ. Panel Backed Manipulating Damages
The Federal Circuit's decision to make Google pay EcoFactor $20 million for infringing a smart thermostat patent clears patent owners to "manufacture a royalty rate" and ignore both market realities and apportionment, Google told the full court in a bid for rehearing.
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July 18, 2024
Ye Brazenly Stole DJ Khalil's Music For 'Donda,' Suit Says
The musical artist formerly known as Kanye West has been slapped with a lawsuit in California federal court claiming that he stole music from DJ Khalil and three other artists for two leading tracks on his blockbuster album "Donda."
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July 18, 2024
Fed. Circ. Won't Deflate Air Mattress Patent Upheld At PTAB
The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's conclusion that no claims of a Sun Pleasure Co. air mattress patent are invalid based on the grounds asserted by a Chinese company.
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July 18, 2024
Invalid Patents Sink Tech Co.'s Claims Against Lenovo
A North Carolina federal judge has cut claims in an infringement suit over data transfer patents by wireless and video technology company InterDigital against Lenovo, finding some of the challenged patents are invalid.
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July 18, 2024
Del. Judge Overrules ViaTech's $34M Jury Win Against Adobe
A Delaware federal judge has concluded that Adobe Inc. could not have infringed a ViaTech technologies licensing system patent, and threw out a jury's $33.8 million infringement verdict.
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July 18, 2024
Tech Giants Can't Sink Slide-To-Unlock Patent At Fed. Circ.
Samsung, Apple and Google failed on Thursday to persuade a panel of Federal Circuit judges to kill a patent covering the idea of sliding-to-unlock a phone, purportedly developed by a small Sweden smartphone developer over a decade ago.
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July 18, 2024
US Cheerleading Org. Loses TM Fight Over 'Worlds' Marks
A Florida federal judge handed a pair of cheerleading organizations a summary judgment win Wednesday in a trademark infringement lawsuit by U.S. All Star Federation that alleged the rivals ripped off the competitive cheerleading organizational body's signature event's name, finding the contested "Worlds" marks are too generic to be protected.
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July 18, 2024
Pool Co. Wants To Dig Into Rival's Alter Egos For $16M Verdict
Pool supply company Hayward Industries Inc. is looking to force responses from the alter egos of bankrupt rival Blueworks Corp. regarding their assets, bank accounts and property so that Hayward can collect on its $16 million false advertising and unfair business practices judgment.
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July 18, 2024
Rising Star: Robins Kaplan's Emily Niles
Emily Niles of Robins Kaplan LLP helped lead the trial team that scored a $71.4 million jury verdict on behalf of Taiwanese Christmas lights company Willis Electric against a rival in Hong Kong that is the world's largest maker of artificial Christmas trees, earning her a spot among the intellectual property law practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
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July 17, 2024
T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon Accused Of Using Negotiating Cartel
An intellectual property licensing business on Wednesday filed yet another suit against AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless, this time accusing the telecommunications companies of wielding their market power and conspiring to refuse to license innovative 4G and 5G wireless communications system technology.
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July 17, 2024
Western Digital Owes $305M Over Hard Drive IP, Jury Told
Hard drive goliath Western Digital owes $305 million for selling drives that infringe MR Technologies' patents for increasing storage capacity, MR's attorney told a California federal jury during opening statements Wednesday, while Western Digital's counsel said the patents are invalid and its products don't infringe anyway.
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July 17, 2024
'Hot Girl Walk' Says Rival Infringed, Set An 'Army' On Brand
Hot Girl Walk, a social media-fueled walking organization, sued the founder of a group called Hot Walk Indy in Indiana federal court on Tuesday, claiming trademark infringement and a plot to "aggressively bully" and "take down" its brand.
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July 17, 2024
Zoho Gets PTAB To Cut Bulk Of Conference Call Patent Claims
Several Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions have wiped out claims in patents covering ways of coordinating conference calls online, following a challenge from a major Indian software company that's facing an infringement lawsuit over the patents in Texas.
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July 17, 2024
PTAB Tears Down Roof Measurement Patent On Remand
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found that Nearmap was able to show that all the challenged claims of an EagleView Technologies Inc. patent on measuring roofs were invalid as obvious, a move that came after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's director remanded the case.
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July 17, 2024
Dykema Faces Sony Sanctions Bid In Baseball Game TM Suit
Sony has urged a Texas federal court to sanction a baseball training company and its counsel in a trademark dispute over the digital giant's use of the phrase "future star series" in a popular video game, claiming they launched a lawsuit without investigating material facts and refused to eliminate false allegations.
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July 17, 2024
ITC Affirms Lab Equipment Co.'s Patent Wasn't Infringed
The U.S. International Trade Commission has upheld an administrative law judge's finding that a California biotechnology outfit did not infringe a German laboratory equipment supplier's patent.
Expert Analysis
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Trending At The PTAB: How Q1 Policymaking Affects Practice
Attorneys at Finnegan consider the first quarter's U.S. Patent and Trademark Office policymaking initiatives and how they may affect practice before the PTAB, including a rule that would codify the current pilot program that allows patent owners two opportunities to amend the challenged claims.
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Stay Interviews Are Key To Retaining Legal Talent
Even as the economy shifts and layoffs continue, law firms still want to retain their top attorneys, and so-called stay interviews — informal conversations with employees to identify potential issues before they lead to turnover — can be a crucial tool for improving retention and morale, say Tina Cohen Nicol and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.
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Direct Claims Ruling May Alter Gov't Ties To Software Firms
A recent Federal Circuit decision allowing a software developer to pursue legal action under the Contract Disputes Act could change the government's relationship with commercial software providers by permitting direct claims, even in third-party purchase situations, say Dan Ramish and Zach Prince at Haynes Boone.
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The Fed. Circ. In February: A Reminder On Procedure Rule 28
Because the Federal Circuit does not often issue a sua sponte precedential order emphasizing an important rule of practice, it is useful to look at how the court applied the restrictions of appellate procedure Rule 28 in Promptu v. Comcast last month, and in cases that preceded it, say Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray at Knobbe Martens.
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Calif. High Court Ruling Has Lessons For Waiving Jury Trials
The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in TriCoast Builders v. Fonnegra, denying relief to a contractor that had waived its right to a jury trial, shows that litigants should always post jury fees as soon as possible, and seek writ review if the court denies relief from a waiver, say Steven Fleischman and Nicolas Sonnenburg at Horvitz & Levy.
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A Defense Strategy For Addressing Copyright Fee-Shifting
Permissive fee-shifting under Section 505 of the Copyright Act poses unique challenges for copyright defendants, carrying an outsize impact on the economic incentive structure in copyright litigation, but relying on a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure may offer a potential solution by allowing defendants to recover attorney fees, say Hugh Marbury and Molly Shaffer at Cozen O'Connor.
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Design Rights Can Build IP Protection, EU Lego Ruling Shows
The EU General Court's recent ruling in Delta Sport v. EU Intellectual Property Office — that Lego's registered community design for a building block was valid — helps clarify when technically dictated designs can enjoy IP protection, and demonstrates how companies can strategically use design rights to protect and enhance their market position, says Christoph Moeller at Mewburn Ellis.
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Contract Disputes Recap: Facts Differ But Same Rules Apply
Zachary Jacobson and Sarah Barney at Seyfarth examine two decisions illustrating that reliance on a technicality may not save an otherwise untimely appeal, and that enforcement of commercial terms and conditions under a federal supply schedule contract may be possible.
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Untangling The Legal Complexities Of Trade Secrets And AI
With broad adoption of generative artificial intelligence, some have suggested trade secret law is the best means for protecting innovations, but while this protection may apply to all forms of information, the breadth of coverage may make identifying the information and later misappropriation difficult, say Joshua Lerner and Nora Passamaneck at WilmerHale.
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Series
Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.
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Judge-Shopping Policy Revisal May Make Issue Worse
The Judicial Conference at its March meeting unveiled a revised policy with the stated goal of limiting litigants’ ability to judge-shop in patent cases, but the policy may actually exacerbate the problem by tying the issue to judge-shopping in polarizing political cases, making reform more difficult, say Robert Niemeier and William Milliken at Sterne Kessler.
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Securing A Common Understanding Of Language Used At Trial
Witness examinations in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump illustrate the importance of building a common understanding of words and phrases and examples as a fact-finding tool at trial, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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A Rainbow Of Lessons From Fruity Pebbles' TTAB Loss
The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s January decision to deny Post Foods' bid to register a trademark on its Fruity Pebbles cereal brand underscores the importance of the interplay among mark description, mark drawing and goods identification when seeking protection for trade dress, say Troy Viger and Jenevieve Maerker at Finnegan.
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Why Oncology Deal Making Continues To Fuel Biotech M&A
The biotech sector's potential for advancements in cancer care continues to attract deal-maker interest, and the keys to successful mergers and acquisitions include the ability to integrate innovative therapies, leverage technological advancements and respond to the dynamic needs of patients, say Bryan Luchs and Mike Weir at White & Case.
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TTAB Ruling May Broaden Alcohol Trademark Analysis
A February U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision that wine is inherently related to bars and cocktail lounges for trademark protection purposes appears to broaden the scope of exclusivity, highlighting that the more similar the marks, the less related the products must be for the TTAB to refuse registration, says William Borchard at Cowan Liebowitz.