Intellectual Property

  • August 15, 2024

    You Can Drive 100 Miles, Albright Tells Texas Instruments

    Dallas-based Texas Instruments Inc. failed Thursday to persuade U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas to let a patent lawsuit leave his jurisdiction, in part because of the "less than 100 miles" between Waco and the federal courthouse in Dallas.

  • August 15, 2024

    'What Is An NFT?': 9th Circ. Mulls Novel Bored Ape TM Fight

    A Ninth Circuit judge considering whether a trial court correctly found artists owe millions for ripping off trademarks on the Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible token collection questioned Thursday whether the NFT market is comparable to typical consumer markets, rhetorically asking, "What are we even talking about? What is an NFT?"

  • August 15, 2024

    Juul License Doesn't Negate R.J. Reynolds' Royalties, Altria Says

    The parent company of Philip Morris is pushing back on what it described as a delayed bid by R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. to skirt paying royalties on a pod-style vape, telling a North Carolina federal court that an "after-the-fact sublicense" with Juul isn't enough to undo the ongoing payments.

  • August 15, 2024

    Ex-Mushroomhead Singer Sues Bandmate Over Royalties

    The co-founder of metal band Mushroomhead has filed a copyright infringement and breach of contract suit in Ohio federal court accusing his fellow co-founder of failing to pay him royalties and income from tours and merchandise sales, and failing to rightfully attribute his ownership of many of the band's original musical works.

  • August 15, 2024

    No Dismissal Yet In Dispute Over Education Law Firm TM

    A Philadelphia-based education law firm's suit seeking to cancel registration for its competitor's trademark "The Education Lawyers" must continue because open questions remain, a Pennsylvania federal judge said.

  • August 15, 2024

    Texas Trio Willfully Stole Lewis Brisbois Name, Judge Says

    A Texas mediation service that named itself after BigLaw behemoth Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP and told the firm to "come and take it" has infringed Lewis Brisbois' trademark and must pay its attorney fees from the bitter suit, which racked up over 300 docket entries in under two years, a Texas federal judge has ruled.

  • August 15, 2024

    Pharma Co. TM Dispute Doesn't Belong In Florida, Judge Says

    A trademark lawsuit between two drug companies with similar names does not belong in a Florida federal court, a judge in West Palm Beach has ruled.

  • August 15, 2024

    Partners Stole Dairy Product Co.'s Trade Secrets, Suit Says

    A dairy farm products company has filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court claiming its manufacturing and distribution partners used its trade secrets to develop and sell a competing line of infection prevention offerings.

  • August 15, 2024

    Delaware Judge Sends Tracking Tech IP Dispute To California

    A Delaware federal judge sent a patent infringement suit brought by a company that sells truck driver tracking software to California federal court, questioning in her opinion whether the company "ever fully intended" to pursue its claims in the First State in the first place.

  • August 14, 2024

    Gilstrap Can't Keep IP Case Top Secret, Federal Circuit Told

    Law professors and media groups are backing a nonprofit's legal quest at the Federal Circuit to unseal documents in a since-concluded patent lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas, arguing that keeping patent cases secret harms the public interest.

  • August 14, 2024

    Fla. Gratuity Platform Alleges Toast Stole Trade Secrets

    Gratuity Solutions LLC accused Boston-based Toast Inc. of misappropriating trade secrets in a lawsuit brought Wednesday in Florida federal court, alleging that executives from the point-of-sale software company stole confidential information after a failed bid to merge the two companies.

  • August 14, 2024

    Cannabis Fertilizer Co. Says Rival Stole IP For Fake THC Study

    A company that sells fertilizer to commercial cannabis growers has claimed a competitor used its trademarks as part of an unsanctioned co-branding campaign and on THC lab testing reports that falsely advertise its products as less effective, according to a suit filed in Washington federal court.

  • August 14, 2024

    Texas Atty Must Pay Volkswagen $200K In Fees For Patent Suit

    A Texas federal judge has ordered litigation firm VDPP LLC and its counsel, Texas attorney William Ramey III of Ramey LLP, to pay Volkswagen $207,543 in fees stemming from a now-dismissed patent case after determining a fee multiplier that applies to "exceptional" cases was appropriate due to the suit's "obvious lack of merit."

  • August 14, 2024

    Novartis' $45B Biz Can Survive If Generic Debuts, Judge Says

    A D.C. federal judge told Novartis to stop acting like it would be destroyed financially by having a generic version of its best-selling drug Entresto enter the market, saying the drugmaker will be fine if it loses $3 billion in U.S. sales out of its $45 billion global revenue.

  • August 14, 2024

    AstraZeneca Freed From $107.5M Verdict In Pfizer Patent Case

    A federal judge on Wednesday overturned a Delaware jury verdict that AstraZeneca owes $107.5 million for infringing two cancer drug patents owned by a Pfizer unit, concluding that both patents are invalid for failing to provide sufficient information about the invention.

  • August 14, 2024

    Boeing Scraps Electric Jet Co.'s $72M Trade Secrets Trial Win

    A Washington federal judge on Wednesday canceled a $72 million jury award against The Boeing Co. for misappropriating electric jet startup Zunum Aero Inc.'s trade secrets, finding Zunum offered "only vague and amorphous descriptions" of the trade secrets at trial.

  • August 14, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Says Fla. Judge 'Misread' Precedent In Elfbar Row

    The maker of the popular Elfbar vape will get another shot at upending a court-imposed order banning it from selling under the "Elf" mark, the Federal Circuit ruled Wednesday, saying the district judge who ordered the injunction "misread" precedent and relied on a "deficient" legal analysis.

  • August 14, 2024

    Netgear Says Scammer Used Its TMs To Defraud Customers

    An alleged online scammer is using Netgear Inc.'s trademarks to trick the computer networking company's customers into thinking they are buying products and services from Netgear itself, according to the company's $4 million complaint alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition.

  • August 14, 2024

    Samsung Biotech Unit Hit With Patent Suit Over Bone Drugs

    The pharmaceutical giant Amgen Inc. is fighting a bid by a South Korean rival to sell biosimilar versions of its highly popular bone drugs Prolia and Xgeva, telling a New Jersey federal court that the proposed medications will infringe 34 patents.

  • August 14, 2024

    AI Job Search Co. Says Rival's Claims Don't Support IP Suit

    Job search platform Tarta.ai has again asked a California federal court to dismiss Jobiak LLC's copyright complaint accusing its rival of stealing its artificial intelligence-driven employment postings database, saying Jobiak has not shown that its individual job listings are copyrightable or that the court has jurisdiction over the case.

  • August 14, 2024

    4th Circ. Says T-Mobile Must Face 'Simply Prepaid' TM Fight

    The Fourth Circuit revived a Virginia-based telecommunications company's infringement suit against T-Mobile, ruling that Simply Wireless had done enough to show it was planning to revamp its "Simply Prepaid" branding and hadn't abandoned the trademark when T-Mobile began using it.

  • August 14, 2024

    Lewis Brisbois, Atty Battle Over Immunity In Texas TM Case

    Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP and a Texas lawyer accused of ripping off the BigLaw firm's name battled over the issue of attorney immunity in post-hearing briefings Tuesday, with the firm writing that the Fifth Circuit "has made itself clear" that the lawyer can't be shielded from the case.

  • August 14, 2024

    Baker Botts, Sumner Schick Seek $14.3M In Fees For IP Win

    Baker Botts LLP and Sumner Schick LLP are seeking nearly $14.3 million in attorney fees plus almost $1.8 million in costs for representing Computer Sciences Corp. in a trade secrets dispute where the IT company won $168.4 million after a Texas jury found Tata Consultancy Services willfully misappropriated CSC's proprietary information.

  • August 14, 2024

    Chancery Says Unisys Must Advance Ex-Workers' Legal Fees

    Pennsylvania information technology company Unisys Corp. must front the legal fees and expenses for two executives it hired away from French competitor Atos SE and then sued for trade secret infringement after they went back to Atos two years later, Delaware's Court of Chancery has ruled.

  • August 14, 2024

    Oil Equipment Co. Says Ex-Workers Took Patent-Pending Tech

    An oilfield equipment company has taken two of its former workers and the competitor they left for to Texas federal court over claims the ex-employees absconded with its patent-pending oil valve technology and then shared it and other trade secrets with their new employer.

Expert Analysis

  • Attys Beware 2 Commonly Overlooked NIL Contract Issues

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    As name, image and likeness deals dominate high school and collegiate sports, preserving a client's NCAA eligibility should be a top priority, so lawyers should understand the potentially damaging contract provisions they may encounter when reviewing an agreement, says Paula Nagarajan at Arnall Golden.

  • FTC Focus: Exploring The Meaning Of Orange Book Letters

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    The Federal Trade Commission recently announced an expansion of its campaign to promote competition by targeting pharmaceutical manufacturers' improper Orange Book patent listings, but there is a question of whether and how this helps generic entrants, say Colin Kass and David Munkittrick at Proskauer.

  • Trending At The PTAB: Real Party In Interest And IPR

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s recent Luminex v. Signify decision, finding a complaint seeking indemnification may be treated as a public demand sufficient to establish a real party-in-interest, shows that the board continues to apply a broad and expansive definition to that term, say Yicong (Eve) Du and Yieyie Yang at Finnegan.

  • Investors Can Aid In The Acceptance Of Psychedelic Medicine

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    Psychedelic medicine is ready to have its breakthrough moment, and although it still faces political, legal and communications challenges, private equity investors can play a significant role in changing the public perception on psychedelics from taboo to acceptance, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell, Charlie Panfil at the Daschle Group and Ethan Lutz at FTI Consulting.

  • 12 Keys To Successful Post-Trial Juror Interviews

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    Post-trial interviews offer attorneys an avenue to gain valuable insights into juror decision making and get feedback that can inform future litigation strategies, but certain best practices must be followed to get the most out of this research tool, say Alexa Hiley and Brianna Smith at IMS Legal.

  • Perspectives

    Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys

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    As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.

  • The Fed. Circ. In May: The Printed Matter Doctrine's Scope

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Ioengine v. Ingenico, which addressed the scope of the printed matter doctrine as applied to transmitted data or program code, restores the doctrine’s status as a relatively narrow part of patent law, say Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray at Knobbe Martens.

  • Fed. Circ. Scrapping Design Patent Tests Creates Uncertainty

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    The Federal Circuit last week discarded established tests for proving that design patents are invalid as obvious, leaving much unknown for design patent applicants, patentees and challengers, such as what constitutes analogous art and how secondary references will be considered and applied, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.

  • Series

    Playing Music Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My deep and passionate involvement in playing, writing and producing music equipped me with skills — like creativity, improvisation and problem-solving — that contribute to the success of my legal career, says attorney Kenneth Greene.

  • Lessons In High-Profile Jury Selection Amid NY Trump Trial

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    Richard Gabriel and Michelle Rey LaRocca at Decision Analysis consider how media exposure can affect a prospective juror in a high-profile case, the misunderstood nature of bias, and recommendations for jury selection in these unique situations as the Trump hush money trial continues in New York.

  • How AI Cos. Can Cope With Shifting Copyright Landscape

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    In the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, recent legal disputes have focused on the utilization of copyrighted material to train algorithms, meaning companies should be aware of fair use implications and possible licensing solutions for AI users, say Michael Hobbs and Justin Tilghman at Troutman Pepper.

  • How Attys Can Avoid Pitfalls When Withdrawing From A Case

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    The Trump campaign's recent scuffle over its bid to replace its counsel in a pregnancy retaliation suit offers a chance to remind attorneys that many troubles inherent in withdrawing from a case can be mitigated or entirely avoided by communicating with clients openly and frequently, says Christopher Konneker at Orsinger Nelson.

  • Supply Chain Considerations For Companies Deploying AI

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    Many businesses will risk failure by embracing artificial intelligence without fully understanding the risks, and the value of a five-step AI supply chain analysis cannot be overstated, say Brooke Berg and Nathan Staffel at Nardello & Co.

  • How Real Estate Cos. Can Protect Their IP In The Metaverse

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    The rise of virtual and augmented reality creates new intellectual property challenges and opportunities for real estate owners, but certain steps, including conducting a diligence investigation to develop an understanding of current obligations, can help companies mitigate IP issues in the metaverse, says George Pavlik at Levenfeld Pearlstein.

  • Using A Children's Book Approach In Firm Marketing Content

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    From “The Giving Tree” to “Where the Wild Things Are,” most children’s books are easy to remember because they use simple words and numbers to tell stories with a human impact — a formula law firms should emulate in their marketing content to stay front of mind for potential clients, says Seema Desai Maglio at The Found Word.

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