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

Mealey's Intellectual Property

May 13, 2024
Patent Board Upholds Rejection By Examiner Of Regeneron Application

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — An effort by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. to undo a final rejection of an application to patent a method of characterizing proteins failed May 13 when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board said it found no error in a determination by an examiner that substituting prior art neonatal fragment crystallizable receptor (FcRn) resins with Regeneron’s claimed protein A resins would have been obvious.
May 13, 2024
Eligibility Of ‘Charge-Back’ Patents Debated At Federal Circuit Oral Arguments

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Counsel for an appellant told the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 10 that five patents were wrongly declared ineligible for patenting by a Georgia federal judge, calling the “point of the invention” an “unconventional data flow” that provides merchants cost savings and other benefits.
May 13, 2024
Federal Circuit Exercises Jurisdiction Over Appeal Of Anti-Filing Injunction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An order by a federal judge in Delaware barring a frequent pro se litigant from filing future lawsuits against individuals she says conspired to tank her earlier patent infringement lawsuits satisfies the relevant test for retaining “arising under” appellate jurisdiction, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said May 10.
May 13, 2024
Judge Orders $1.4M Supersedeas Bond Pending Tobacco Rolling Papers Appeal

ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge granted a motion filed by rolling papers companies and ordered defendants found liable for trademark infringement to post a supersedeas bond worth more than $1.4 million pending their appeal of jury verdicts against them to the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
May 10, 2024
Appellant: Patent Owner, Licensee Level ‘Meritless’ Allegations In Brief

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A bamboo building products company held liable at a jury trial for patent infringement is denying allegations by the patent owner and patent licensee that its appeal to the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals improperly proposes a new construction of a disputed claim term.
May 10, 2024
In Tentative Ruling, Judge Says Some AI Copyright Claims Likely Survive

SAN FRANCISCO — Artists’ copyright infringement claims appear to adequately allege that an artificial intelligence program stores copyrighted works and can be further tested at summary judgment, a federal judge in California said in a tentative ruling on motions to dismiss.
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.