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Mealey's Intellectual Property

September 10, 2025
Superman, Tweety Bird Owners Sue Midjourney Over AI’s Outputs

LOS ANGELES — Midjourney Inc. knowingly trains its artificial intelligence on copyrighted works and allows users to generate unauthorized reproductions despite having the technological prowess to prevent it, the owners of characters such as Batman, Superman, Bugs Bunny and Tweety Bird allege in a lawsuit filed in California federal court.
September 10, 2025
9th Circuit: Judge Tossed Trader Joe’s Trademark Suit Against Union Too Soon

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel revived Trader Joe’s Co.’s trademark infringement suit against a labor union representing employees at the company’s grocery stores, finding that a California federal judge wrongly applied the likelihood-of-confusion test when evaluating if tote bags and other products sold by the union infringed the company’s marks and prematurely held that the Norris-LaGuardia Act (NLGA) barred injunctive relief.
September 10, 2025
Judge Questions Completeness Of $1.5B Settlement Between Authors, Anthropic

SAN FRANCISCO — The federal judge overseeing the artificial intelligence copyright class action against Anthropic PBC questioned the completeness of the $1.5 billion settlement, expressing concerns that important questions remained that could not be answered in the timeframe proposed by the parties. The judge postponed preliminary approval of the agreement until the parties could submit clarifying information.
September 10, 2025
Federal Circuit: Applicants’ Vitamin Claims Anticipated By Own Prior Applications

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) rejection of a patent application based on previous applications from the appellants for a vitamin C and betaine product; the panel also dismissed arguments about patent term adjustment and abandonment for lack of jurisdiction.
September 10, 2025
Federal Circuit: Fees Owed To Chipmaker In Tossed Infringement Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Texas federal judge should have granted attorney fees to Realtek Semiconductor Corp. because it was the “prevailing party” after the judge converted a patent owner’s voluntary dismissal of a pair of infringement suits to a dismissal with prejudice, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Sept. 9.
September 09, 2025
Federal Circuit Orders New Trial In Oil Refining Patent Infringement Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Texas federal judge should have approved Magēmā Technology LLC’s request for a new trial in a patent infringement suit it brought against Phillips 66 and related entities, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held Sept. 8; the panel said it could not be certain if an improperly introduced theory from Phillips informed a jury’s verdict in its favor.
September 09, 2025
Federal Circuit: PTAB Wrong To Skip Alice Analysis For Patent Application

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) failed to fully consider the indefiniteness and abstractness of an inventor’s proposed patent describing a system for distributing content between online users, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in a nonprecedential judgment, vacating part of PTAB’s findings and reversing other aspects.
September 08, 2025
Federal Circuit Won’t Disturb Sanctions In Floor Tape Patent Fight

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the fourth consideration of a dispute over a patent describing a floor-marking tape product,a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Sept. 5 summarily affirmed an Ohio federal judge’s entry of sanctions against an inventor and his company, holding that the mandate rule applied because the appeals court explicitly affirmed the entry of sanctions in its March 2025 opinion related to the third appeal.
September 08, 2025
Authors, Anthropic Reach $1.5 Billion Settlement Of AI Copyright Class Action

SAN FRANCISCO — Anthropic PBC has agreed to pay no less than $1.5 billion to resolve claims it improperly pirated nearly half a million books while obtaining data for use in training its Claude artificial intelligence, a class of authors says in a Sept. 5 motion for preliminary settlement approval.
September 08, 2025
ISPs, U.S. To High Court: ISP Infringement Liability Ruling Could Stifle Web

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A coalition of trade organizations representing internet service providers (ISPs) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 5 amicus curiae brief that the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding that an ISP was liable for contributory infringement for piracy actions from internet users could “undermine decades of progress in getting Americans everywhere connected to the Internet.”
September 05, 2025
11th Circuit: ‘Shotgun’ Copyright Case Against Sub Shop Rightfully Tossed

ATLANTA — A Florida federal judge’s decision to dismiss a pro se plaintiff-appellant’s copyright infringement claims against the commercial entity behind the Firehouse Subs restaurant chain was affirmed by a panel in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which found no abuse of discretion in the judge’s finding that the complaint was an impermissible shotgun pleading.
September 05, 2025
Generic Med Amicus Echoes Calls For High Court Look At Entresto Patent Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Association for Accessible Medicines (AAM) tells the U.S. Supreme Court in an amicus curiae brief in support of MSN Pharmaceuticals and related entities (MSN) that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals created a situation where medicine patent holders “will see a new strategy they can employ to fashion overbroad claims to delay generic competition” while skirting patent law requirements “that protect the public’s interests in ensuring that patents do not let inventors control more than they invented.”
September 05, 2025
No Errors In TTAB’s Denial OF Applicant’s Logo Marks, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of nonprecedential opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) did not err in denying a pro se applicant’s request for registrations of two marks related to his sensor network product, leaving in place TTAB’s findings that the applications lacked a clear identification of the goods or services covered by the marks, among other issues.
September 05, 2025
Judge: Tech Company Established Ownership In IP Fight With TikTok Before Trial

SAN FRANCISCO — In a pair of orders, a California federal judge held that a China-based company adequately established that it owns the asserted copyrights and trade secrets in a “heavily litigated” dispute with TikTok Inc. and affiliated entities, including source code from an earlier video-editing app that preceded the plaintiff entity’s app. The judge found that there is no triable issue of fact as to the ownership of the code.
September 05, 2025
Union Sues Over Elimination Of Patents Office Workers’ Collective Bargaining Rights

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An August executive order (EO) that expanded on a March EO and nullified the collective bargaining rights of additional agencies, including the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, was “retaliatory and not based on the statutory criteria” contained in the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute (FSLMRS), the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) argues in a complaint filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia.
September 05, 2025
9th Circuit Transfers Fee Issue In Facebook Cybersquatting Trademark Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Without providing explanation, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a motion filed by Instagram LLC and Facebook Inc., now known as Meta Platforms Inc., (collectively, Meta) to transfer consideration of attorney fees on appeal to a district court in Meta’s trademark infringement suit against multiple Chinese-based companies for their alleged cybersquatting by using domain names purportedly infringing on Meta’s trademarks.
September 04, 2025
N.Y. Federal Judge: Jurisdiction Discovery Needed In IP Row Started In California

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York partly granted a professional employer organization (PEO) service company’s request for limited jurisdictional discovery in a trademark dispute with another entity offering similar services over the name “Pinnacle in what the judge called a “seemingly endless tug-of-war over jurisdiction,” noting that a California federal judge dismissed a trademark dispute with the same parties in opposite roles for jurisdictional reasons in early 2024.
September 04, 2025
4th Circuit Upholds Preliminary Injunction Denial In Dance Team Name Mark Row

RICHMOND, Va. — There was no error in a North Carolina judge’s decision to deny a charter school and its parent-teacher organization’s request for a preliminary injunction against a local dance company in the parties’ dispute over a trademark on a logo using the name “Inspire,” a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that factual questions remained as to the ownership and priority of use of the marks.
September 03, 2025
Design Firm Tells High Court 8th Circuit Got Floor Plan Fair Use Case Wrong

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A design company is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its petition for a writ of certiorari, arguing that the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding that two real estate agents’ use of floor plans in home resale listings was a noninfringing fair use created a doctrinal “Catch-22” that makes owners of copyrights of architectural details unable to enforce their rights.
September 03, 2025
PTAB Wrongly Excluded Google’s Arguments In Database IPR, Federal Circuit Holds

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) erred in claim construction and wrongly rejected Google LLC’s reply evidence in inter partes review proceedings Google brought against a technology company, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held, vacating findings that Google failed to show some of the company’s patents’ claims to be invalid.
September 02, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Prosecution Laches For PTO’s Rejection Of Applications

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held on Aug. 29 that a District of Columbia federal judge did not err in finding that a prolific patent applicant’s applications were barred under the doctrine of prosecution laches, rejecting as forfeited the inventor’s argument that a 1992 decision by the Board of Patent Appeals and Inferences showed he had no reason to change his method of prosecuting the applications.
September 02, 2025
9th Circuit Resurrects Copyright Dispute Over Catholic Liturgical Songs

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel revived a copyright infringement dispute between two writers of Catholic liturgical music, partly reversing an Oregon federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant-appellee songwriter and her publisher because questions of fact remain as to whether the defendant songwriter had access to the plaintiff-appellant’s hymn.
August 29, 2025
Point Of Robots.txt Focus In Publishers’ AI Copyright Suit

WILMINGTON, Del. — Whether the robots.txt file instructions barring bot scraping of websites constitutes a binding technical measure or simply directions that can be ignored came before a federal judge in New York, as OpenAI Inc. entities and a publisher of 45 media brands brief a motion to dismiss.
August 29, 2025
Split Federal Circuit Again Sends 4-Letter Word Mark Application Back To TTAB

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected an artist and designer’s constitutional arguments against the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) decision to deny his trademark applications for a vulgar word, but the panel still vacated the TTAB’s decision for lack of specificity, saying the TTAB’s “reasoning sounds in fact very much as though it has taken an ‘I know it when I see it’ approach to failure-to-function refusals.”
August 29, 2025
Federal Circuit: Judge Wrongly Applied Prosecution Laches In Speaker Patent Row

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In mixed results for both parties, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Aug. 28 held that a California federal judge wrongly invalidated claims in some of a speaker company’s patents in a dispute with Google LLC and improperly applied prosecution laches, while also holding that the judge correctly invalidated claims in another one of the speaker company’s patents.