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Intellectual Property
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July 31, 2024
Fed. Circ. Sees No Disclosure In Private Sale Of Laptop Ports
A "private" sale of some 15,000 laptop ports doesn't count as "a public disclosure," as far as patent law is concerned, the Federal Circuit ruled Wednesday, affirming a patent board panel's earlier ruling.
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July 31, 2024
Apple, Google Dropped From IP Suit Over PUBG Knockoffs
A California federal judge has agreed to dismiss video game publisher Krafton's copyright suit accusing Google and Apple of distributing infringing versions of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds on their respective platforms, while Krafton and YouTube said they're close to resolving claims over an infringing film containing game footage.
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July 31, 2024
Trade Secrets Cases To Watch In 2024: A Midyear Report
A Virginia appellate court reversed a historic $2 billion trade secrets verdict in a closely watched case, and the Seventh Circuit emphasized that the federal trade secrets law applies to conduct abroad, expanding the damages landscape. Here are some of the most notable trade secrets cases to watch for the rest of 2024.
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July 31, 2024
Senators Aim To Increase Injunctions In Patent Battles
A new bipartisan bill in Congress would make it easier for federal courts to issue injunctions in patent cases, but critics say this would primarily help companies "that do not make any products or provide any services."
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July 31, 2024
Judge Rips 'Stinky' Business In Skiplagged Ticketing Suit
A Texas federal judge gave early wins Wednesday to American Airlines Inc. and Skiplagged Inc. in the airline's suit alleging the booking site used a "loophole" in booking connecting flights to sell unauthorized tickets, but he made sure to note his issues with the ticketing firm's business practices.
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July 31, 2024
Authors' Suit Against OpenAI Trimmed To Copyright Act Claim
A California federal judge on Wednesday cut an unfair competition claim from a proposed class action filed by a group of notable authors alleging that ChatGPT creator OpenAI Inc. is wrongly copying their protected works, a decision that leaves only the lawsuit's claim for direct copyright infringement.
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July 31, 2024
Inhaler Patents 'Must Be' In Orange Book, Teva Tells Fed. Circ.
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. urged the Federal Circuit to upend a lower court decision ejecting inhaler device patents from an important government database, arguing that the delisting, won by Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc. in an infringement lawsuit, ignores broad protection envisioned under intellectual property law.
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July 31, 2024
Jury Instruction Error Kills $21M Verdict Over Noncompete
Three former employees of a consulting group who jumped to a competitor in 2016 were let off the hook for a $21 million jury verdict Wednesday by an intermediate Massachusetts appellate court over a prejudicial error in jury instructions.
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July 31, 2024
Copyright Office Warns Of 'Urgent Need' For Deepfakes Law
The U.S. Copyright Office said Wednesday that "there is an urgent need" for new federal legislation to tackle the proliferation of deepfakes created through artificial intelligence, saying in a long-awaited report with recommendations to Congress that "an era of sophisticated digital replicas has arrived."
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July 31, 2024
Experienced IP Atty Joins Lewis Brisbois From Fowler White
Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP has announced the hire of a former Fowler White Burnett PA intellectual property attorney with over 20 years of experience as a partner in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
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July 31, 2024
1st Circ. Mostly Backs $5M Award In Biotech Recruiting Spat
The First Circuit left intact the vast majority of a $5 million post-trial award against a life sciences recruiting firm found to have misappropriated trade secrets from a rival involving placements at Takeda and Vedanta Biosciences.
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July 31, 2024
5 Trials To Watch In The 2nd Half Of 2024
Upcoming high-profile trials over star lawyer Tom Girardi's alleged fraud, Hunter Biden's taxes and Washington state's "patent troll" law are among the cases to watch in the latter half of the year.
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July 31, 2024
Agribusiness Co. Says Ex-Employee Blatantly Stole Clients
An agricultural firm has taken one of its former workers to Ohio federal court for allegedly telling over a dozen clients that he was "putting off" selling products and services to them while he awaited his move to the company's direct competitor, then urging those clients to leave with him.
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July 31, 2024
Greenberg Traurig Adds Michelman & Robinson's Dallas Head
Greenberg Traurig LLP has fortified its litigation and intellectual property and technology practices with a shareholder who previously served as managing partner of Michelman & Robinson LLP's Dallas shop.
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July 31, 2024
White & Case Hires Ex-Latham IP Partner In DC
White & Case LLP has hired a Latham & Watkins LLP partner, who spent the majority of his career with his prior firm, representing clients in a range of intellectual property-related matters, the firm announced Wednesday.
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July 30, 2024
Ameriprise Says LPL Uses Recruits To Harvest Rivals' Secrets
LPL Financial should be barred from using any trade secrets and confidential client information it has harvested from Ameriprise Financial through the recruitment of its competitors' financial advisers, Ameriprise told a California federal judge Tuesday in alleging LPL has violated legal, regulatory and industry rules.
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July 30, 2024
Guess, Macy's Settle IP Suit Over Artists' Graffiti Work
Guess Inc. and Macy's have settled a copyright action lodged by three prominent graffiti artists who accused the companies of exploiting their names and donning their work across T-shirts without permission, the parties told a California federal judge Tuesday.
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July 30, 2024
Patent Award 10 Times Higher Than Request Found Excessive
A New York federal judge Tuesday kept in place a jury's verdict holding that lighting fixture company Lutron Electronics Co. willfully infringed rival GeigTech East Bay's window shade patent, but said $34.6 million for damages is excessive and, instead, offered GeigTech $3.8 million or a new damages trial.
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July 30, 2024
Amazon Hits Nokia With Cloud-Computing Infringement Suit
Amazon sued Nokia in Delaware federal court Tuesday alleging the Finnish tech company infringed a dozen of its patents in an effort to make a late entry into the cloud-computing technology field by "leveraging Amazon's innovative solutions" that were developed over decades.
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July 30, 2024
Fla. Court Won't Nix Award In Israeli Sunglasses Fight
A Florida federal judge declined Monday to vacate an arbitral award issued to sunglasses maker Verso Israel LLC in a $3 million dispute with an Israeli pop star accused of undercutting a deal to promote the brand, ruling that the pop star's motion was filed far too late.
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July 30, 2024
Vidal Uses Her Arthrex Powers To Address A Typo
The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has ordered patent board judges to revisit a ruling on "an obvious typographical error" in a patent used by a Chinese company to try to eject a different patent involved in litigation surrounding programming used in real-time "camera-like" mapping.
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July 30, 2024
AI Co. Says Actors Can't Prove Voices Are Theirs In IP Suit
A startup that makes software to create voice-over narrations slammed a complaint in New York federal court from two voice actors who allege the company has used their voices without permission, saying they have not plausibly claimed that the voices they have heard on YouTube and other places are actually theirs and not a computer-generated synthetic voice.
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July 30, 2024
Netflix Wants $170M 'Baby Reindeer' Defamation Suit Axed
Netflix urged a California federal judge Monday to toss a Scottish lawyer's $170 million lawsuit alleging the streaming giant's popular stalker miniseries "Baby Reindeer" defamed her, with the show's creator stating in a declaration it is an "emotionally true" fictionalized work he wrote after being stalked by the lawyer for years.
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July 30, 2024
Hytera Radio Redesign 'Infected' With Stolen IP, Motorola Says
Hytera Communications should be held in contempt for shirking royalty obligations on its latest line of digital mobile radio products because evidence shows the company's entire redesign process was "infected" with stolen trade secrets, Motorola Solutions argued Monday.
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July 30, 2024
PTAB Scraps 4 Patents At Heart Of $12M Google Trial Loss
A Texas app developer fighting Google over its calling patents has suffered a series of blows at the patent board after judges there ruled that language in most of those patents were not very new, putting a $12 million jury verdict for the app-maker in jeopardy.
Expert Analysis
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F1 Driver AI Case Sheds Light On Winning Tactics In IP Suits
A German court recently awarded damages to former F1 driver Michael Schumacher's family in an artificial intelligence dispute over the unlicensed use of his image, illustrating how athletes are using the law to protect their brands, and setting a precedent in other AI-generated image rights cases, William Bowyer at Lawrence Stephens.
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8th Circ. Insurance Ruling Spotlights Related-Claims Defenses
The Eighth Circuit’s recent Dexon v. Travelers ruling — that the insurer must provide a defense despite the policy’s related-acts provision — provides guidance for how policyholders can overcome related-acts defenses, say Geoffrey Fehling and Jae Lynn Huckaba at Hunton.
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Counterfeits At The Olympics Pose IP Challenges
With the 2024 Olympic Games quickly approaching, the proliferation of counterfeit Olympic merchandise poses a difficult challenge to the protection of intellectual property rights and the preservation of the Olympic brand's integrity, says Kimiya Shams at Devialet.
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Series
Playing Chess Makes Me A Better Lawyer
There are many ways that chess skills translate directly into lawyer skills, but for me, the bigger career lessons go beyond the direct parallels — playing chess has shown me the value of seeing gradual improvement in and focusing deep concentration on a nonwork endeavor, says attorney Steven Fink.
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Patent Lessons From 7 Federal Circuit Reversals In May
A look at recent cases where the Federal Circuit reversed or vacated decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board or a federal district court provide guidance on how to succeed on appeal by clarifying the obviousness analysis of design patents, the finality of a judgment, and more, say Denise De Mory and Li Guo at Bunsow De Mory.
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Litigation Inspiration: Attys Can Be Heroic Like Olympians
Although litigation won’t earn anyone an Olympic medal in Paris this summer, it can be worthy of the same lasting honor if attorneys exercise focused restraint — seeking both their clients’ interests and those of the court — instead of merely pursuing every advantage short of sanctionable conduct, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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Lean Into The 'Great Restoration' To Retain Legal Talent
As the “great resignation,” in which employees voluntarily left their jobs in droves, has largely dissipated, legal employers should now work toward the idea of a “great restoration,” adopting strategies to effectively hire, onboard and retain top legal talent, says Molly McGrath at Hiring & Empowering Solutions.
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Momofuku Chili War May Chill Common Phrase TM Apps
Momofuku’s recent trademark battle over the “Chili Crunch” mark shows that over-enforcement when protecting exclusivity rights may backfire not just in the public eye, but with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as well, says Anthony Panebianco at Davis Malm.
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Trademark In Artistic Works 1 Year After Jack Daniel's
In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court's Jack Daniel's v. VIP Products ruling, courts have applied Jack Daniel's inconsistently to deny First Amendment protection to artistic works, providing guidance for dismissing trademark claims relating to film and TV titles, say Hardy Ehlers and Neema Sahni at Covington.
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NCAA Settlement May End The NIL Model As We Know It
The recent House v. NCAA settlement in California federal court, in which the NCAA agreed to allow schools to directly pay March Madness television revenue to their athletes, may send outside name, image and likeness collectives in-house, says Mike Ingersoll at Womble Bond.
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Legal Battles Show Brands' Dilemma In Luxury Resale Trend
Recent litigation, such as Chanel's pending case against The RealReal, underscores the intricate balance luxury brands must strike between protecting their trademarks and embracing the burgeoning secondhand market that values sustainability, says Prachi Ajmera at Michelman & Robinson.
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AI-Generated Soundalikes Pose Right Of Publicity Issues
Artificial intelligence voice generators have recently proliferated, allowing users to create new voices or manipulate existing vocals with no audio engineering expertise, and although soundalikes may be permissible in certain cases, they likely violate the right of publicity of the person who is being mimicked, says Matthew Savare at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Why Jurors Balk At 'I Don't Recall' — And How To Respond
Jurors often react negatively to a witness who responds “I don’t remember” because they tend to hold erroneous beliefs about the nature of human memory, but attorneys can adopt a few strategies to mitigate the impact of these biases, say Steve Wood and Ava Hernández at Courtroom Sciences.
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Beware Of Trademark Scammers Leveraging USPTO Data
Amid a recent uptick in fraudulent communications directed at trademark applicants, registrants must understand how to protect themselves and their brand from fraudulent schemes and solicitation, say Michael Kelber and Alexandra Maloney at Neal Gerber.
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Series
Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge at Robinson Bradshaw.