Intellectual Property

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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."

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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."

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • July 30, 2024

    Dyson Can't Dispose Of SharkNinja Vacuum Patent Suit

    Dyson can't sweep away a patent infringement suit by Massachusetts-based competitor SharkNinja, a federal judge said Tuesday in denying the high-end vacuum maker's motion to dismiss the case.

Expert Analysis

  • Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

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    A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

  • Businesses Should Take Their AI Contracts Off Auto-Renew

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    When subscribing to artificial intelligence tools — or to any technology in a highly competitive and legally thorny market — companies should push back on automatic renewal contract clauses for reasons including litigation and regulatory risk, and competition, says Chris Wlach at Huge Inc.

  • Del. IP Ruling May Mark Limitation-By-Limitation Analysis Shift

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    A Delaware federal court's recent ruling in Lindis Biotech v. Amgen, which involved complex technology where the complaint contained neither facts nor a specific allegation directed to a claim limitation, might spark a shift away from requiring a limitation-by-limitation analysis, say Ted Mathias and Ian Swan at Axinn.

  • Trump Hush Money Case Offers Master Class In Trial Strategy

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    The New York criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump typifies some of the greatest challenges that lawyers face in crafting persuasive presentations, providing lessons on how to handle bad facts, craft a simple story that withstands attack, and cross-examine with that story in mind, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Cell Therapy Cos. Must Beware Limits Of Patent Safe Harbors

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    Though developers of gene and cell therapy products commonly assume that a legal safe harbor protects them from patent infringement suits, recent case law shows that not all preapproval uses of patented technology are necessarily protected, say Natasha Daughtrey and Joshua Weinger at Goodwin.

  • ITC Ruling Has Serious IP Implications For Foreign Imports

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    While a recent U.S. International Trade Commission decision is a win for trade secret owners who can show injury to a U.S. domestic industry, the decision also means that companies operating in foreign jurisdictions will be subject to the requirements of U.S. trade secret law, say Paul Ainsworth and Cristen Corry at Sterne Kessler.

  • What The Justices' Copyright Damages Ruling Didn't Address

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Warner Chappell v. Nealy clarified when a copyright owner may recover damages in jurisdictions that apply the so-called discovery rule, it did not settle the overriding question of whether the Copyright Act even permits applying the rule, say Ivy Estoesta and William Milliken at Sterne Kessler.

  • Series

    Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • How Clinical Trials Affect Patentability In US And Europe

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    A comparison of recent U.S. and European patent decisions — concerning the effect of disclosures in clinical trials on the patentability of products — offers guidance on good practice for companies dealing with public use issues and prior art documents in these commercially important jurisdictions, say lawyers at Finnegan.

  • TTAB Ruling Raises Foreign-Language Mark Questions

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    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's recent decision to cancel the Veuve Olivier registration due to its similarity to Veuve Clicquot brings new focus to the treatment of foreign terms and the doctrine of foreign equivalents, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System

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    As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.

  • Measuring Early Impact Of Rule 702 Changes On Patent Cases

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    Since Federal Rule of Evidence 702 was amended to clarify the standards for admitting expert witness testimony five months ago, emerging trends in patent cases suggest that it may be easier to limit or exclude expert testimony, and hold key practice takeaways for attorneys, say Manuel Velez and Nan Zhang at Mayer Brown.

  • Protecting IP May Be Tricky Without Noncompetes

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    Contrary to the Federal Trade Commission's view, trade secret law cannot replace noncompetes' protection of proprietary information because intellectual property includes far more than just trade secrets, so businesses need to closely examine their IP protection options, say Aimee Fagan and Ching-Lee Fukuda at Sidley.

  • 8 Legal Issues Influencing Investors In The Creator Economy

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    The rapidly expanding digital creator economy — funding for which more than doubled in the U.S. in the first quarter — comes with its own set of unique legal issues investors must carefully consider before diving in, say Louis Lehot and Alan Pate at Foley & Lardner.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

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