Mealey's Intellectual Property : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Intellectual Property

May 10, 2024
Data Scraper Prevails In Spat With X Corp., Judge Finds Copyright Preemption

SAN FRANCISCO — Dismissal in full, with leave to amend, was granted May 9 in a breach of contract and unfair competition action by X Corp., with a federal judge in California declaring that “the extent to which public data may be freely copied from social media platforms, even under the banner of scraping, should generally be governed by the Copyright Act,” and not by “conflicting, ubiquitous” terms of use.
May 10, 2024
Trademark Holder Defends Disgorged Profits Award In Supreme Court Brief

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Lanham Act gives courts broad discretion to award disgorged profits to prevailing parties in trademark infringement suits, an engineering firm tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief opposing a petition for certiorari by a firm that says a $43 million disgorgement award against it was improperly based on the profits of its affiliates, which are separate corporate entities.
May 10, 2024
Local, Regional News Outlets Sue Microsoft, OpenAI Over ChatGPT Training Data

NEW YORK — Eight regional and local news organizations filed a copyright lawsuit in a federal court in New York, adding to the growing list of entities suing Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI over the data they used to train their artificial intelligence products.
May 10, 2024
Verdict Clearing Thom Browne Of Trademark Infringement Won’t Be Undone, Panel Says

NEW YORK — In a summary order, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found no reversible error in the jury instructions given by a federal judge in New York assigned to oversee litigation over the signature stripe trademark owned by adidas America Inc.
May 09, 2024
Plaintiff Given 1 Week To Hand Over Social Media Logins To Gown Designer

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York on May 8 dissolved in part and revised in part her March 1 preliminary injunction in a trademark dispute between a bridal gown company and a former designer, upon finding that the plaintiff company “failed to carry its burden of demonstrating a clear or substantial likelihood of success in establishing that it was the original owner or transferee of” two social media accounts, extinguishing a “crucial element” of its claim for conversion.
May 09, 2024
6th Circuit Reverses Dismissal Of Trademark Case On Jurisdiction Grounds

CINCINNATI — Findings by a Tennessee federal judge that his court lacks jurisdiction over an Arizona-based trademark infringement defendant were reversed May 8 by a divided Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which said “longstanding precedent establishes that a company’s choice to welcome customers from and regularly sell products into a state subjects the company to that state’s jurisdiction.”
May 09, 2024
Divided High Court Affirms Copyright Damages Ruling; Dissent Says DIG Warranted

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a divided opinion issued May 9, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed findings by the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a copyright plaintiff can recover damages for infringing acts occurring more than three years before filing suit so long as the infringement was alleged within three years of being discovered.
May 09, 2024
Magistrate Denies Motion For Indicative Relief In FCA Suit Alleging Overcharging

SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal magistrate judge denied a relator’s motion for an indicative ruling that pursuant to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision in United States ex rel. Silbersher v. Valeant Pharms. Int’l, Inc., a similar False Claims Act (FCA) suit brought by the same relator, the magistrate judge should grant the relator “relief” from the judgment on appeal to the Ninth Circuit after dismissing his claims that pharmaceutical companies overcharged the federal government and states under Medicare and Medicaid.
May 08, 2024
Panel Agrees: Domestic Industry Requirement Not Satisfied By Patent Owner

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Findings by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that a patent owner failed to establish a domestic industry for its electronic stud finder technology were affirmed May 8 by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
May 08, 2024
Discretionary Denial Of Apple Petitions Warranted, Patent Owner Asserts

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Infringement litigation in Texas federal court over several fraud detection patents is too far along to institute inter partes review (IPR), the patent owner told the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on May 7, urging a discretionary denial of the challenges to its technology by Apple Inc.
May 08, 2024
Microsoft, OpenAI Shared Knowledge On CMI Removal, Media Outlet Says

NEW YORK — Microsoft Inc. and OpenAI’s close relationship necessitates that they shared material with improperly removed copyright management information (CMI) and knew that removing the material from training sets could result in ChatGPT plagiarizing the content, a media company tells a federal judge in New York in opposing dismissal of its suit.
May 08, 2024
Jury Verdict Clearing Famed Tattoo Artist In Copyright Row Will Stand

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California has turned away a plaintiff photographer’s request for a new trial on allegations that Katherine Von Drachenberg, better known as Kat Von D, copied his photograph of the late Miles Davis for a tattoo she created for a friend in 2017.
May 07, 2024
In Win For AI Company, Panel Upholds Cancellation Of Patent Claims By Board

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Voice command technology allegedly infringed by an artificial intelligence (AI) company’s free and open-source software virtual assistant was confirmed unpatentable on May 6 by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
May 07, 2024
PTO Persuades Panel To Remand IFIT Appeal To Trademark Board

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Over the objection of appellant iFIT Inc., the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has remanded the fitness company’s appeal of its failed bid to block an application to register the “I-FIT FLEX” trademark in view of a concession by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s ruling was light on factual support, which the agency said could hamper appellate review.
May 06, 2024
Amazon Patent Evaluation Submission Is Purposeful Direction, Panel Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The initiation of an evaluation under the Amazon Patent Evaluation Express (APEX) system — which triggers the potential removal of an allegedly infringing product listing from Amazon.com if a seller fails to respond — constitutes a purposeful direction of activities at the seller’s forum state sufficient to confer specific personal jurisdiction, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled.
May 06, 2024
Printed Matter Doctrine Wrongly Applied By Board, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 3 upheld a determination by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that the vast majority of challenged claims in three patents directed to a tunneling client access point are unpatentable but said six claims in two of those same patents were wrongly deemed anticipated, following the board’s erroneous application of the printed matter doctrine.
May 06, 2024
Federal Circuit Finds No Error By Board In Patent Claim Construction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Final written decisions (FWDs) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that declared four packet monitor patents obvious will stand, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled, rejecting claims by the patent owner that the board construed a disputed claim term too broadly.
May 03, 2024
Maker Of Muscular Dystrophy Drug Found Liable For Patent Infringement

WILMINGTON, Del. — Rejection by a federal judge in Delaware of allegations that the phrase “in which uracil bases are thymine bases” is indefinite has yielded a summary judgment by a different federal judge in Delaware in favor of a patent owner on the question of infringement.
May 03, 2024
With Patents Confirmed Obvious, Panel Vacates Texas Damage Award

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 2 said its affirmance the same day of findings by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that three patents are invalid has an issue preclusive effect on a separate appeal of an amended final judgment by a Texas federal judge who, on remand, recalculated damages for infringement of the same patents.
May 02, 2024
OpenAI Faults Media’s ‘Generalized Allegations’ In ChatGPT Copyright Suit

NEW YORK — Journalism outlets’ allegation that ChatGPT-4 produces copyrighted material does not provide an injury on which they can proceed, and removal of copyright management information from internal datasets allegedly used to train the artificial intelligence cannot possibly meet the standard of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), OpenAI Inc. and related entities told a federal judge in New York in seeking dismissal.
May 01, 2024
PTO Grants Reexam Of 4th AI Patent; Delaware Infringement Case Stayed

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In an office action, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) said it will reexamine a patent directed to a method of dental arch image analysis that relies on artificial intelligence on the heels of other reexaminations and an inter partes review (IPR) it has recently initiated of three patents from the same family, which led to a stay of related infringement litigation in Delaware federal court.
May 01, 2024
Panel: Texas Federal Judge Wrongly Found Standing Lacking In Patent Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Allegations that a radio frequency identification (RFID)-related patent was infringed were revived May 1 by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which found that contrary to the conclusion reached by a federal judge in Texas, a creditor’s “unexercised” right to license a patent does not deprive a patentee of its right to exclude.
May 01, 2024
Website Owner Asks High Court About Scope Of Contributory Copyright Infringement

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The owner and operator of the Kiwi Farms website, who was found liable for contributory infringement over site users’ posting of copyrighted materials, tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a petition for certiorari that the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling improperly expanded secondary liability by holding that receiving a takedown notice sufficiently establishes knowledge of infringement meriting action by a site operator.
April 30, 2024
Panel: Discretion Not Abused By Board In Sustaining Trademark Opposition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel of the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 30 said it will not disturb a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board that turned away an application to register the “#TODECACHO” trademark.
April 30, 2024
Temu Beats Trademark Claims In Illinois, But Leave To Amend Granted

CHICAGO — Allegations by the maker of a hand grip strengthener that the retail platform Temu sells counterfeit products bearing the “FitBeast” trademark were dismissed without prejudice on April 29 by a federal judge in Illinois, who said the accused conduct is not a use in commerce.