Intellectual Property

  • June 13, 2024

    Justices Say 'Trump Too Small' TM Denial No Speech Violation

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday concluded "Trump Too Small" cannot be a registered trademark because it would violate a federal prohibition on using a living person's name without their consent, ruling against a California attorney who said using the phrase should be considered protected political speech.

  • June 12, 2024

    Tillis Told Drug Patents Are Too Complex For Easy Answers

    When and how generic drugs enter the marketplace varies widely among different drugs and isn't necessarily related to how many patents are covering those drugs, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said Wednesday in a report requested by a top member of the U.S. Senate's Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

  • June 12, 2024

    Texas Judge 'Exasperated' By Parties In Skiplagged Suit

    An "exasperated" Texas federal judge on Wednesday ordered American Airlines and airfare search engine Skiplagged Inc. into mediation after the parties ran into their sixth discovery dispute in litigation around Skiplagged's alleged unauthorized ticket sales, saying the court didn't want to referee "countless discovery disputes used as litigation tactics."

  • June 12, 2024

    Hytera Tried 'End Run' Around Court's Power, Motorola Says

    Hytera Communications should not be able to get around an antisuit injunction that forced it to end Chinese litigation addressing mobile radio trade secrets, Motorola Solutions told the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday, arguing that Hytera must be stopped from doing an "end run" around the American case against it.

  • June 12, 2024

    Microsoft Faces EDTX Patent Suit Over AI Supercomputer

    Microsoft has been hit with a patent infringement lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas over its artificial intelligence supercomputer by a business led by a German lawyer who once ran the patent licensing outfit IPCom.

  • June 12, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Affirms PTAB Ax Of Slide-To-Unlock Patent

    The Federal Circuit has quickly disposed of an appeal over an administrative board ruling that wiped out language in a patent asserted in a small Swedish smartphone company's litigation against Apple and Samsung over claims its founder was the first to develop a "slide to unlock" feature.

  • June 12, 2024

    School Says Declaration Bares Quinn Emanuel Lies In IP Feud

    Columbia University has told the Federal Circuit that a declaration from a former Norton Lifelock Inc. computer scientist shows that the company's former lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP are lying about his refusal to testify in the school's decade-long $600 million patent case in Virginia federal court.

  • June 12, 2024

    House IP Panel Eyes Transparency For Litigation Funders

    A congressional committee on Wednesday began discussing whether to require more transparency of third-party litigation funding agreements to stem what lawmakers say are abusive patent lawsuits and national security concerns if hostile foreign governments meddle with cases anonymously.

  • June 12, 2024

    Samsung Competitor Can't Get Quick Win On Laches Claim

    Mojo Mobility couldn't convince a Texas federal magistrate judge to recommend it get partial summary judgment in its suit accusing Samsung of infringing wireless charging patents, rejecting Mojo's attempt to stake the decision on part of the patent prosecution process.

  • June 12, 2024

    Apple Gets PTAB To Cut Some Voice Recognition IP Claims

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has invalidated the vast majority of claims in a series of Zentian Ltd. patents related to voice recognition technology but upheld some claims in challenges from Apple and Amazon.

  • June 12, 2024

    '83 Wolfpack Suit May Throw NIL Peace For A Loop

    As the NCAA cheered a settlement aimed at marshaling payments to athletes for their names, images and likenesses last week, experts say a new suit from one of college basketball's most historic teams illustrates the shortcomings of a hasty effort to right past wrongs.

  • June 12, 2024

    USPTO Updates PTAB Review, Assignment Procedures

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has finalized its rule governing how draft Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions will be distributed within the agency, and has updated its policy for assigning cases within the PTAB, according to a Wednesday notice in the Federal Register and agency statement, respectively.

  • June 12, 2024

    Microsoft, OpenAI Call Papers' Suit A 'Copycat' Of NYT's Case

    OpenAI and Microsoft Corp. have asked a New York federal court to toss the bulk of a copyright complaint from eight newspapers that accuses the companies of stealing their content to develop versions of ChatGPT, contending the lawsuit is modeled after one from The New York Times and saying the allegations mischaracterize the technology.

  • June 12, 2024

    Lipitor Buyers Get Final OK For $93M Deal In Antitrust Fight

    A New Jersey federal judge gave final approval Wednesday to a $93 million settlement between a class of buyers of Lipitor and Pfizer, resolving their claims in sprawling antitrust litigation that Pfizer conspired with a drug manufacturer to delay the release of a cheaper generic version of Lipitor and monopolize the market.

  • June 12, 2024

    Colo. Tech Co. Says Startup Founder Can't Shield Sale Docs

    A Colorado technology company is arguing that the founder of a startup it acquired shouldn't be allowed to withhold nearly half of the documents it is seeking by asserting privilege in his $15 million fraud suit, as he claimed to rely on his law firm's advice when he approved the deal.

  • June 12, 2024

    Gaming Co. Derides DraftKings' $2.3M Fee Bid In Patent Suit

    The fallout from a testy patent dispute over DraftKings' geolocation technology intensified this week as Interactive Games pushed back against the online gambling giant's request for $2.3 million in legal fees in Delaware federal court.

  • June 12, 2024

    Nike 'Footware' TM Too Descriptive To Defeat Puma Challenge

    Nike cannot resurrect its trademark for the phrase "footware," a European Union court ruled on Wednesday, siding with rival Puma that the word was too descriptive to warrant intellectual property protections.

  • June 12, 2024

    Pool Co. Hits Ch. 11 After 'Crippling' $16M False Ads Verdict

    The American arm of a Chinese swimming pool products manufacturer has declared bankruptcy after it was slapped with a $16 million false advertising and unfair business practices judgment in North Carolina that the company previously warned would put it out of business.

  • June 11, 2024

    Martin Shkreli Told To Hand Over Wu-Tang Album

    A New York federal judge ordered Martin Shkreli on Tuesday to hand over any copies he might have of the Wu-Tang Clan's album he once bought before it was sold off by the federal government to settle a $7.3 million tab from Shkreli's criminal judgment on securities fraud.

  • June 11, 2024

    Calif. Judge Won't Let Apple Escape Tech Patent Case

    A California federal judge has found Apple can't dodge a patent suit, allowing claims to move forward that the tech giant's "back tap" feature infringes a patent owned by technology company Haptic Inc.

  • June 11, 2024

    Quinn Emanuel Swapped Sides For X Suit, Data Co. Says

    Israeli data collector Bright Data Ltd. asked a California federal judge on Tuesday to disqualify law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP from representing social media company X Corp., which is suing Bright Data over its data-scraping practices, accusing the firm, which was once contracted by the data company for advice in a similar matter, of switching sides.

  • June 11, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Reinstates Parts Of Blood Analyzer Secrets Verdict

    The Federal Circuit decided Tuesday that a Rhode Island jury was right to find that an Italian company's blood analyzer computer code was stolen by a U.S. rival, but another jury will have to determine any damages.

  • June 11, 2024

    AI No Scarier Than Nail Guns Or Microscopes, Kappos Says

    Former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director David Kappos cautioned attorneys Tuesday to "keep ourselves grounded" about the use of artificial intelligence in intellectual property, saying it's just a tool like a microscope or nail gun, rather than something justifying "panic."

  • June 11, 2024

    6th Circ. Judge Wary Of Party Dissenters' 'Right' To Use Logo

    A Sixth Circuit judge seemed skeptical on Tuesday that limiting a dissenting faction of the Libertarian Party of Michigan's use of the name and logo of the Libertarian National Committee infringes the group's speech rights, saying members can still voice their opinions.

  • June 11, 2024

    NCAA Hit With NIL Suit By '83 Wolfpack Players

    Members of North Carolina State University's 1983 championship basketball team have accused the National Collegiate Athletic Association of exploiting their names, images and likenesses for profit.

Expert Analysis

  • How Copyright Office AI Standards Depart From Precedent

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    The U.S. Copyright Office's recent departure from decades of precedent for technology-assisted works, and express refusal to grant protection to artificial intelligence-assisted works, may change as the dust settles around ancillary copyright issues for AI currently pending in litigation, says Kristine Craig at Hanson Bridgett.

  • IP Considerations For Companies In Carbon Capture Sector

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    As companies collaborate to commercialize carbon capture technologies amid massive government investment under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a coherent intellectual property strategy is more important than ever, including proactively addressing and resolving questions about ownership of the technology, say Ashley Kennedy and James De Vellis at Foley & Lardner.

  • Does Expert Testimony Aid Preliminary IPR Responses?

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    Dechert attorneys analyze six years of patent owners' preliminary responses to inter partes review petitions to determine whether the elimination of the presumption favoring the petitioner as to preinstitution testimonial evidence affected the usefulness of expert testimony in responses.

  • Rebuttal

    Double-Patenting Ruling Shows Terminal Disclaimers' Value

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    While a recent Law360 guest article seems to argue that the Federal Circuit’s Cellect decision last year robs patent owners of lawful patent term, the ruling actually identifies how terminal disclaimers are the solution to the problem of obviousness-type double patenting, say Jane Love and Robert Trenchard at Gibson Dunn.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • How Courts Are Interpreting Fed. Circ. IPR Estoppel Ruling

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    In the year since the Federal Circuit’s Ironburg ruling, which clarified the scope of inter partes and post-grant review estoppel, district court decisions show that application of IPR or PGR estoppel may become a resource-intensive inquiry, say Whitney Meier Howard and Michelle Lavrichenko at Venable.

  • Should NIL Collectives Be Allowed Tax-Favored Status?

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    Arguments are being made for and against allowing organizations to provide charitable contribution tax deductions for donations used to compensate student-athletes, a practice with impacts on competition for student-athletes and overall tax fairness, but ultimately it is a question for Congress, say Andres Castillo and Barry Gogel at the University of Maryland School of Law.

  • What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.

  • Patent Damages Jury Verdicts Aren't Always End Of The Story

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    Recent outcomes demonstrate that patent damages jury verdicts are often challenged and are overturned approximately one-third of the time, and successful verdict challenges typically occur at the appellate level and concern patent validity and infringement, say James Donohue and Marie Sanyal at Charles River.

  • Manufacturers Should Pay Attention To 'Right-To-Repair' Laws

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    Oregon’s recently passed "right-to-repair" statute highlights that the R2R movement is not going away, and that manufacturers of all kinds need to be paying attention to the evolving list of R2R statutes in various states and consider participating in the process, says Courtney Sarnow at Culhane.

  • Why High Court May Have Rejected IP Obviousness Appeal

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    Attorneys at Womble Bond analyze possible reasons the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Vanda Pharmaceuticals' request to review the Federal Circuit’s reasonable expectation of success standard for determining obviousness, including that the court was unpersuaded by the company's argument that Amgen v. Sanofi places a bind on drug developers.

  • Opinion

    Viral Deepfakes Of Taylor Swift Highlight Need For Regulation

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    As the nation grapples with addressing risk from artificial intelligence use, the recent circulation of AI-generated pornographic images of Taylor Swift on the social platform X highlights the need for federal legislation to protect nonconsenting subjects of deepfake pornography, say Nicole Brenner and Susie Ruiz-Lichter at Squire Patton.

  • A Guide To Using The DTSA For Misappropriation Recourse

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    Nicholas Armington at Mintz explains the ins and outs of drafting a misappropriation complaint under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and how and why companies should think strategically about federal and state law when filing a claim.

  • How Cos. Can Protect IP In Light Of FTC Noncompete Rule

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    While several groups are challenging the Federal Trade Commission’s recently approved rule banning noncompetition agreements, employers should begin planning other ways to protect their valuable trade secrets, confidential information and other intellectual property, says Thomas Duston at Marshall Gerstein.

  • The Fed. Circ. In April: Hurdles Remain For Generics

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent Salix v. Norwich ruling — where Salix's brand-name drug's patents were invalidated — is a reminder to patent practitioners that invalidating a competitor's patents may not guarantee abbreviated new drug application approval, say Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm at Knobbe Martens.

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