By Dani Kass

Law360 (July 10, 2020, 10:23 PM EDT ) The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a drug patent trial in New York to go remote and again delayed a media streaming patent trial in Texas. Meanwhile, 3M settled a fraud suit tied to its N95 masks, and Jeff Dunham received pushback from a company selling face masks with his image. Here are some recent intellectual property updates tied to the outbreak that you may have missed.

Trials:

How and when intellectual property is going to go on trial is still one of the biggest issues playing out, and there was some movement this week. Namely, a long-awaited trial between Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Serenity Pharmaceuticals in the Southern District of New York tied to Ferring's nighttime urination medication Nocdurna kicked off over Zoom.

Over the first few days, Serenity said it's seeking $388,700 for Ferring's alleged infringement, and experts for Ferring testified from Europe.

In Delaware, Chief U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark said on June 6 that he's still planning for an early August trial between Sunoco and Magellan Midstream in litigation over gasoline patents. He said it will proceed as "an experiment," with jurors attending in person and witnesses testifying remotely.

A little farther south, the pandemic stirred up drama in the government's case targeting an allegedly illegal television and movie streaming service. A Virginia federal judge on Thursday vowed to issue bench warrants to two defendants who didn't appear in court to face their federal charges.

Counsel for Kristopher Lee Dallmann and Jared Edward Jaurequi, who run an online subscription service that allegedly cost television and movie copyright owners millions of dollars, said Wednesday that they weren't able to board their flight from Nevada because they hadn't received the results of their COVID-19 tests yet.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III shot back that they need to stop using the pandemic as an excuse and pointed to accommodations already being made by the government.

Finally, U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright on Tuesday again pushed back a jury trial in MV3 Partners LLC's infringement suit against Roku Inc., with new dates eyed for September. The Texas trial involving a streaming media patent had originally been set for June, and has been repeatedly delayed as the pandemic plays out.

Other litigation:

OoShirts Inc. on May 6 had moved to dismiss a multimillion-dollar suit lodged by Jeff Dunham. The comedian's April suit had accused the California merchandise company of illegally using his name, face and ventriloquism characters to sell T-shirts, coronavirus face masks and other merchandise. He promised to donate any recoveries.

The dismissal motion says the suit is too vague, and it's unclear which of the more than 50 defendants played which roles in the alleged misconduct. The company also claims that any infringement was done by third parties who designed and uploaded the content.

Counsel for Dunham didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

3M Co. on Thursday announced a deal with Zachary Puznak and his company ZeroAqua. The suit against Puznak accused him of offering to sell as many as 5 billion N95 masks to the Indiana Economic Development Corp. by claiming to be in direct contact with "executives from 3M." When pressed for verification, he allegedly accused IEDC of "paranoid irrationality."

Puznak consented to a permanent injunction and made a payment to 3M, which will be donated to COVID-19 relief efforts, 3M's counsel at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP said in a statement.

In a company statement, 3M attorney William Childs said "the resolution of this case has permanently stopped a scam that used 3M's name and the promise of nonexistent N95 respirators to target emergency officials and profiteer during the pandemic."

The deal required Puznak to apologize to the state of Indiana. In 3M's statement, Puznak was cited as saying, "if I understood then what I understand now, I never would have gotten involved in this scheme" and that he's cooperating to undo the wrongs.

Puznak added that he's "testified under oath that the people who contacted me were attempting to take advantage of my best intentions and use me as a vehicle for their attempt to commit fraud on the state of Indiana," and that he's cooperating with officials to target the "architects of this scheme."

Then on Thursday, a biotech company — which said its antibody discovery was the first to enter human clinical trials for COVID-19 — filed patent infringement litigation in Delaware federal court. AbCellera Biologics Inc.'s suit claims Berkeley Lights Inc. is infringing several patents with its Beacon system, which is used for processes including antibody discovery.

Berkeley Lights didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Lastly, Microsoft said on June 6 that a Virginia court has unsealed documents related to the company's recent efforts to prevent alleged cybercriminals from stealing its users' personal information through a "COVID-19 themed" phishing campaign.

According to an unsealed complaint, which features Lanham Act claims, two unnamed defendants allegedly used professional-seeming domains and tricked victims with emails "designed to look like they come from an employer." The company said its digital crimes unit managed to block other alleged phishing attempts by the same defendants last year. Recently, however, the defendants have allegedly sent pandemic-related emails to millions of customers, meriting legal action, Microsoft said.

--Additional reporting by Daniel Siegal, Cara Salvatore, Khorri Atkinson, Ryan Davis, Hailey Konnath and Emma Whitford. Editing by Haylee Pearl.

Update: This story has been updated with additional comment from Puznak.

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