Intellectual Property

  • May 21, 2024

    Full Fed. Circ. Throws Out 'Rigid' Tests For Design Patents

    The full Federal Circuit on Tuesday overruled long-standing tests for proving that design patents are invalid as obvious, finding that the rules are "improperly rigid" and holding that the obviousness test for utility patents should be used instead.

  • May 21, 2024

    Carlton Fields Continues Growing IP Litigation Team In NY

    Carlton Fields has hired its fourth intellectual property litigator in New York in the past year, adding a former Zuber Lawler partner to the practice as a shareholder.

  • May 20, 2024

    Scarlett Johansson 'Shocked, Angered' By ChatGPT AI Voice

    Scarlett Johansson revealed in a statement Monday that she declined OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's offer to voice the current ChatGPT, but said she was "shocked, angered and in disbelief" when she recently heard a demo of the generative artificial intelligence system's voice that "sounded so eerily similar" to her own.

  • May 20, 2024

    Bungie Takes Aim At Cheat Code Sellers In Copyright Trial

    Video game studio Bungie kicked off a Seattle copyright trial on Monday by telling federal jurors a group of cheat code sellers deleted financial records and other data and even fabricated a fake press release about the sale of their website to throw Bungie and its attorneys off their scent.

  • May 20, 2024

    Idaho, Micron Defend 'Bad Faith' Patent Law At Fed. Circ.

    The state of Idaho and Micron Technology Inc. have told the Federal Circuit that Idaho's law barring "bad faith" allegations of patent infringement is constitutional, defending a lower court's ruling that Longhorn IP must pay an $8 million bond under the law.

  • May 20, 2024

    House Advances Bill To Limit Some Patent Office Fines

    A bill that would create a "good faith exception" to certain fines from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has unanimously passed through the House's Judiciary Committee.

  • May 20, 2024

    Startup Admits Sharing IP With Boeing After Supposed Swipe

    The co-founder of a startup accusing the Boeing Co. of plotting to steal its intellectual property to build a copycat electric jet acknowledged during cross-examination Monday that his company kept willingly sharing trade secrets with the aviation giant after discovering the alleged misappropriations.

  • May 20, 2024

    GM Cleared Of 'Inequitable Conduct' Accusations In Patent Row

    A federal judge in Chicago has ruled that General Motors's longtime legal rival there has failed to convince him that engineers working for the automaker showed "deceptive intent" when filing a design patent at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office using the wrong name.

  • May 20, 2024

    USPTO Clarifies Means-Plus-Function Claims For Antibodies

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new Appeals Review Panel clarified the use of means-plus-function claiming when patenting antibodies, while continuing to reject claims of a Xencor Inc. patent application related to treating autoimmune diseases.

  • May 20, 2024

    Judge Tosses Acuitas' COVID Biotech IP Suit

    A New Jersey federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit from a maker of a component of a COVID-19 vaccine relating to patent infringement litigation brought by two other companies against Pfizer and BioNTech.

  • May 20, 2024

    Healthcare Futures Co. Sues Breakaway Ex-Members In Del.

    A company seeking to develop what it described as the first healthcare futures exchange has sued two former managers in Delaware's Court of Chancery for pilfering intellectual property and other resources and then launching a competing venture.

  • May 20, 2024

    Tesla Pushes Charging Station Patent Suit Out Of Texas

    Despite Elon Musk's decision to move the headquarters of his company to the Western District of Texas, Tesla was able to persuade a federal judge in Austin to send an infringement suit targeting its charging stations to California, where the company was previously based.

  • May 20, 2024

    Travelers Owed Tech Co. Defense In TM Row, 8th Circ. Says

    Travelers had a duty to defend a computer retailer in an underlying trademark infringement action filed by Cisco Systems, the Eighth Circuit affirmed Monday, saying it cannot conclude that coverage is barred by the policy's related-acts provision.

  • May 20, 2024

    Split Fed. Circ. Affirms Del. Atty Fees Can't Include PTAB Work

    Dish Network and Sirius XM aren't entitled to attorney fees for getting a patent they were accused of infringing invalidated at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, even if the instigating infringement claims were deemed "objectively baseless," a split Federal Circuit panel affirmed Monday.

  • May 20, 2024

    Rite Aid Settles Trademark Suit Over New Logo

    Rite Aid has reached an agreement with Brand Design Co. to end a lawsuit claiming that the drugstore chain misused the design firm's font for a new logo, the parties have told a Pennsylvania federal court.

  • May 20, 2024

    Photographer, Lions Clash Over Sanders Statue Suit Venue

    A professional photographer and the NFL's Detroit Lions are scuffling over whether New York federal court is the proper venue to handle the photographer's lawsuit accusing the team of unlawfully using his copyrighted photo to create a statue of legendary running back Barry Sanders.

  • May 20, 2024

    3 Insurance Execs Can't Hit Pause On Asset Theft Claims

    Three former Sherbrooke Corporate Ltd. executives accused of stealing assets when they left to form their own venture lost a bid to halt the company's lawsuit, after a North Carolina federal judge doubted that their efforts to toss the case would succeed.

  • May 20, 2024

    USPTO Says Patent Applicants' Data Was Mistakenly Leaked

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has said it accidentally released certain patent information that shouldn't have been made public during a more than monthlong period, marking another time the office has incorrectly released information.

  • May 20, 2024

    Moderna Fends Off Pfizer's MRNA Patent Challenge

    Moderna has successfully defended a key patent underpinning its COVID-19 vaccine, after rivals Pfizer and BioNTech attempted to convince the European Patent Office that the IP protections should be nixed.

  • May 20, 2024

    Justices Reject Hearst's 'Discovery Rule' Petition In Pics Case

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Fifth Circuit decision that found Hearst Newspapers liable for infringing copyrighted photos of Ireland's "Guinness Castle," even though the suit was filed past the three-year statute of limitations.

  • May 20, 2024

    High Court Skips Fight Over 'Impossible' TM Name

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined a cert petition from Illinois-based marketing consulting firm Impossible X LLC, which had asked the justices to review a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived a trademark complaint against it from veggie-burger maker Impossible Foods Inc.

  • May 20, 2024

    Justices Reject Seirus Challenge To Design Patent Test

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to review a Federal Circuit ruling that revived Columbia Sportswear's design patent suit against Seirus Innovative Accessories Inc., which Seirus said created an "illogical, unworkable test" for design patent cases.

  • May 17, 2024

    Qorvo Wins $38.6M In Akoustis Trade Secrets And Patent Trial

    A Delaware federal jury on Friday told Akoustis Technologies Inc. to pay wireless company Qorvo Inc. nearly $38.6 million for misappropriating its trade secrets and infringing its patents, following a two-week trial over radio frequency filter technology.

  • May 17, 2024

    Boeing Jury Urged To Award Startup At Least $163M At IP Trial

    An electric-jet company told a Seattle jury Friday that Boeing misappropriated its trade secrets to build a copycat plane under the guise of investing in the startup, entitling it to an award of more than $163 million.

  • May 17, 2024

    Bong Co. Can't Get Early Win In TM Suit Over No-Show Opponent

    The maker of Stündenglass-branded glass infusers was denied a win over a retailer that didn't bother to put up a defense against its trademark infringement suit, after a California federal judge accepted a magistrate's report that the litigious manufacturer still couldn't back up its claims.

Expert Analysis

  • Averting Patent And Other IP Risks In Generative AI Use

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    While leveraging generative AI presents potential problems such as loss of ownership of patents and other intellectual properties, a series of practice tips, including ensuring that the technology is used as a supplementary tool and is not contributing to invention conception, can help mitigate those concerns, say Mackenzie Martin and Bryce Bailey at Baker McKenzie.

  • After TikTok, Tiptoeing Toward Patent Transfer Alignment

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    Following the Fifth Circuit's TikTok decision, which aimed to standardize transfer analysis in patent cases, the Federal Circuit and Texas federal courts facing transfer requests have taken small steps to consider the practical realities of patent litigation, reinforcing the intensely factual focus of the analysis, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.

  • New Hydrogen Regulations Show The Need For IP Protections

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    The introduction of hydrogen regulations, such as the IRS' proposed tax credit for clean hydrogen under the Inflation Reduction Act, are reshaping the competitive landscape, with intellectual property rights an area of increased emphasis, say Evan Glass and James De Vellis at Foley & Lardner.

  • Inside The PTAB's Seagen Cancer Drug Patent Decision

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    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's recent finding that Seagen's claims for antibody-drug conjugate technology were unpatentable — for lack of enablement, lack of written description and anticipation — mark the latest chapter in the complex patent dispute as the case heads for director review, says Ryan Hagglund at Loeb & Loeb.

  • 6 Pointers For Attys To Build Trust, Credibility On Social Media

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    In an era of information overload, attorneys can use social media strategically — from making infographics to leveraging targeted advertising — to cut through the noise and establish a reputation among current and potential clients, says Marly Broudie at SocialEyes Communications.

  • Opinion

    Biden Admin's March-In Plan Would Hurt Medical Innovation

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    The Biden administration's proposal to reinterpret the Bayh-Dole Act and allow the government to claw back patents when it determines that a commercialized product's price is too high would discourage private investment in important research and development, says Ken Thorpe at the Rollins School of Public Health.

  • Google Patent Case Is A Claim Construction Litigation Lesson

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    The Federal Circuit's recent precedential decision in Google v. EcoFactor, which held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board erred in the claim construction it had unknowingly adopted, shows that litigators should be alert to claim construction issues that masquerade as something else, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • A Post-Mortem Analysis Of Stroock's Demise

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    After the dissolution of 147-year-old firm Stroock late last year shook up the legal world, a post-mortem analysis of the data reveals a long list of warning signs preceding the firm’s collapse — and provides some insight into how other firms might avoid the same disastrous fate, says Craig Savitzky at Leopard Solutions.

  • Reassessing Trade Secrets Amid Proposed Noncompete Ban

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    The Federal Trade Commission's proposed ban on noncompete agreements as well as state bans make it prudent for businesses to reevaluate and reinvigorate approaches to trade secret protection, including knowing what information employees are providing to vendors, and making sure confidentiality agreements are put in place before information is shared, says Rob Jensen at Wolf Greenfield.

  • Considering The Logical Extremes Of Your Legal Argument

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    Recent oral arguments in the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump highlighted the age-old technique of extending an argument to its logical limit — a principle that is still important for attorneys to consider in preparing their cases, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • How High Court SEC Case Could Affect The ITC

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy will likely spare the U.S. International Trade Commission from major operative changes, the ITC’s ability to issue penalties for violations of its orders may change, say Gwendolyn Tawresey and Ryan Deck at Troutman Pepper.

  • 2nd Circ. Ruling Will Guide Social Media Account Ownership

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    The Second Circuit’s recent decision in JLM Couture v. Gutman — which held that ownership of social media accounts must be resolved using traditional property law analysis — will guide employers and employees alike in future cases, and underscores the importance of express agreements in establishing ownership of social media accounts, says Joshua Glasgow at Phillips Lytle.

  • Storytelling Strategies To Defuse Courtroom Conspiracies

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    Misinformation continues to proliferate in all sectors of society, including in the courtroom, as jurors try to fill in the gaps of incomplete trial narratives — underscoring the need for attorneys to tell a complete, consistent and credible story before and during trial, says David Metz at IMS Legal Strategies.

  • Aldi Design Infringement Case Highlights Assessment Issues

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    The forthcoming English Court of Appeal decision in Marks and Spencer v. Aldi, regarding the alleged infringement of design rights, could provide practitioners with new guidance, particularly in relation to the relevant date for assessment of infringement and the weight that should be attributed to certain design elements in making this assessment, say Rory Graham and Georgia Davis at RPC.

  • Opinion

    9th Circ. Should Overturn The Miles Davis Tattoo Ruling

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    A California district court made several missteps that led to a finding that celebrity artist Kat Von D's Miles Davis tattoo did not infringe copyright, and the Ninth Circuit should overturn the decision because recent U.S. Supreme Court guidance was ignored and the jury did not receive adequate instruction, says Brian Moriarty at Hamilton Brook.

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