Intellectual Property

  • March 12, 2025

    Photo Agency Sues Country Club Over Prime Rib Picture

    A photograph licensing company filed a lawsuit against a Maryland golf and country club in federal court on Tuesday, alleging the club used a picture of a prime rib roast in its promotional materials without permission.

  • March 12, 2025

    Venable Adds 2 Patent Partners From Axinn In San Francisco

    Venable LLP has hired two technology-focused partners from Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP to expand its intellectual property team in San Francisco.

  • March 11, 2025

    Medical Device Co. Seeks Fed. Circ. Redo Over Patent Trial

    A medical device manufacturer is asking a Federal Circuit panel to reconsider a decision reviving a patent infringement case against it, arguing a lower court judge was fine to allow tardy testimony from a witness who took its side.

  • March 11, 2025

    George Clinton Brings New IP Theft Suit Against Longtime Foe

    George Clinton sued music executive Armen Boladian for copyright theft and civil fraud in Florida federal court Tuesday, the latest in a long-running legal battle over royalties between the Parliament-Funkadelic front man and his onetime business partner.

  • March 11, 2025

    USPTO Acting Director To Review Bitcoin, Railway Patents

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's current acting director made some of her first moves wading into patent board rulings, deciding last week to take a closer look at two board decisions involving blockchain mines and railway signs.

  • March 11, 2025

    Ex-USPTO Head Can't Be Expert In Walmart IP Fight, Co. Says

    A startup suing Walmart over trade secrets connected to shelf-freshness technology wants an Arkansas federal court to block the retailer from retaining former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal as an expert when the $115 million case moves forward to a retrial.

  • March 11, 2025

    More ITC Patent Cases Expected After Fed. Circ. 'Sea Change'

    A recent Federal Circuit decision discarding the U.S. International Trade Commission's limits on what types of domestic expenses qualify a company to bring a patent suit at the agency marks a pronounced shift that will likely spur considerably more ITC cases, attorneys say.

  • March 11, 2025

    Wendy's, Target Accused Of Infringing Online Ordering Patent

    Target and a group of chain restaurants including Wendy's, Applebee's and the Cheesecake Factory were hit with patent infringement lawsuits in Texas federal courts on Monday by Smart Order LLC, which accused them of infringing a patent covering a customer internet ordering system.

  • March 11, 2025

    HPE's IP Case Moves Ahead, With Chance To Fix Some Claims

    A California federal judge has given Hewlett Packard Enterprise a month to amend its patent infringement complaint against a group of companies and greenlit the IT giant to seek discovery on business one of them may have done in the state.

  • March 11, 2025

    Eli Lilly Suit Over Compounded Drugs Survives Dismissal

    A Washington federal judge has trimmed Eli Lilly's lawsuit against two Seattle-area clinics and the doctors who run them for allegedly duping consumers into buying copycat versions of its diabetes and weight loss medications Mounjaro and Zepbound, nixing the pharmaceutical giant's consumer protection claim while preserving its trademark infringement and false advertising allegations.

  • March 11, 2025

    Authors Seek Win On Meta AI Direct Infringement Claims

    A group of award-winning authors urged a California federal judge to grant them a win on claims Meta directly infringed their copyrights by using databases of pirated works to train its "Llama" artificial-intelligence tool, arguing Meta infringed "massive" amounts of protected material, including books written by Supreme Court justices.

  • March 11, 2025

    Software Co. Tells Fed. Circ. It's Owed Over $12.7M In IP Dispute

    A software developer pushed back at the federal government's defense of a $12.7 million copyright infringement award on Monday, telling the Federal Circuit that the judgment should be based on the company's actual negotiations with the Defense Health Agency.

  • March 11, 2025

    Netflix Gets 'Surviving R. Kelly' Libel Suit Tossed, For Now

    Netflix Inc. and Lifetime Entertainment Services won dismissal Tuesday of a defamation lawsuit alleging the latest iteration of their hit documentary series "Surviving R. Kelly" defamed a former assistant to the now-imprisoned R&B singer, although a Delaware federal judge gave the plaintiff another shot at pleading actual malice.

  • March 11, 2025

    ISP Asks Justices To Reverse Liability In Piracy Suit

    It's time for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in and decide whether internet service providers can be liable for copyright infringement if they haven't done enough to stop their customers from pirating music, says an ISP that has been locked in one such legal battle for the better part of a decade.

  • March 11, 2025

    No Joke, Paramount's $11M Comic Royalty Deal Gets Prelim OK

    A New York federal judge gave a preliminary approval Tuesday to a settlement agreement in a putative class action that would see Paramount Global and the entity behind Comedy Central pay $11 million to 120 comedians to resolve allegations the media companies wrongly withheld royalty payments. 

  • March 11, 2025

    Google Trade Secrets Case Against Ex-Engineer Resolved

    A Texas federal judge closed Google LLC's trade secrets lawsuit against a former employee on Monday after the parties agreed last December to an injunction forbidding him from possessing or sharing any of the company's confidential information.

  • March 11, 2025

    Lego Competitor Asks 2nd Circ. To Allow Figurine Sales

    A Lego competitor on Tuesday urged a Second Circuit panel to reverse a Connecticut district judge's order blocking the sale of figurines designed to fit into the toy company's signature interlocking play system, arguing the threadbare directive improperly modified a prior injunction.

  • March 11, 2025

    Software Co. Says Ex-Employees Stole AI Trade Secrets

    A software company that uses artificial intelligence to automate appeals when insurers deny a healthcare provider's payment request has sued two former staffers, alleging they used confidential information gathered through their employment to launch a competing company.

  • March 11, 2025

    Full Fed. Circ. Won't Rehear $95M Altria Patent Suit Win

    The Federal Circuit won't hold an en banc review of a $95 million judgment against R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. that ended a suit from Altria Client Services LLC alleging that R.J. Reynolds infringed three of its patents.

  • March 11, 2025

    White House Names Ex-Goldman Sachs Atty To Lead USPTO

    U.S. President Donald Trump has nominated John Squires, Goldman Sachs' former longtime chief intellectual property counsel, to serve as the next U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director.

  • March 10, 2025

    Amgen, Fresenius Settle Osteoporosis Drug Patent Dispute

    Amgen Inc. and Fresenius Kabi USA have reached an agreement resolving Amgen's allegations that Fresenius infringed a long list of patents covering drugs for treating osteoporosis and preventing bone problems, according to an order issued Friday in New Jersey federal court.

  • March 10, 2025

    Meta Can't Ditch Authors' Copyright Claim In AI Tool Fight

    A California federal judge has refused to throw out group of authors' claim that Meta Platforms Inc. violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim with its large language model product, ruling that they've adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed copyright notice information to conceal infringement.

  • March 10, 2025

    Nike Receives $355K From Lululemon In Shoe Patent Trial

    A New York federal jury has found that athletic apparel maker Lululemon infringed one Nike footwear manufacturing patent but did not infringe a second, and awarded Nike $355,450 in damages, well below the $2.8 million the shoe giant was seeking.

  • March 10, 2025

    Realtek's Antitrust Claims Against MediaTek Pared Back

    A California federal judge on Friday dismissed Realtek Semiconductor's claims that MediaTek and two other companies conspired to restrain trade through a series of sham patent suits, while keeping claims tied to two 2021 federal cases in Texas that he said Realtek plausibly alleged to be baseless.

  • March 10, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Vacates PTAB Decision Partly Axing 4G Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Monday vacated a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision partly invalidating a Sisvel patent that the company says is essential to the 4G standard and has asserted against other businesses in infringement litigation.

Expert Analysis

  • Presidential Campaign Errors Provide Lessons For Trial Attys

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    Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign employed numerous strategies that evidently didn’t land, and trial attorneys should take note, because voters and jurors are both decision-makers who are listening for how one’s case presentation would affect them personally, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • How Patent Landscape Analysis Drives Business Growth

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    Keegan Caldwell at Caldwell Law explores how patent landscape analysis serves as a key driver of sustainable growth — examining how its components, strategic advantages and implementation best practices are reshaping innovation leadership.

  • Marching In On Orange Book Drugs May Have Limited Effect

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    Statistical analysis shows that marching in on Orange Book drug patent holders to require additional licensees would have a relatively minimal impact on drug prices, and should be weighed against the harms it could have on pharmaceutical innovation, say researchers at Competition Dynamics.

  • Series

    Being A Navy Reservist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving this country in uniform has not only been one of the greatest honors of my life, but it has also provided me with opportunities to broaden my legal acumen and interpersonal skills in ways that have indelibly contributed to my civilian practice, says Phillip Smith at Weinberg Wheeler.

  • Navigating DOJ's Patchwork Whistleblower Regime

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    In the past few months, the U.S. Department of Justice and several individual U.S. attorney’s offices have issued different pilot programs aimed at incentivizing individuals to blow the whistle on misconduct, but this piecemeal approach may create confusion and suboptimal outcomes, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • So You Want To Move Your Law Practice To Canada, Eh?

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    Google searches for how to move to Canada have surged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, and if you’re an attorney considering a move to the Great White North, you’ll need to understand how the practice of law differs across the border, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.

  • When Arbitration Is Effective For Employment And IP Cases

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    Widespread adoption of arbitration has revolutionized conflict resolution in employment law, and the benefits of speed, expertise and confidentiality make it an increasingly attractive alternative for resolving patent conflicts — but arbitration is not a silver bullet, say Brandon Miller at Fisher Phillips and Camilla Bykhovsky at Turner Boyd.

  • US Intellectual Property-Based Sanctions Could Be Imminent

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    A recent presidential delegation suggests that regulators may be ready to wield the sanctions authority found in the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act, which has been unutilized for the first 22 months of its life, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Key Territory-Split Licensing Lessons For Life Sciences Cos.

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    Territory-split deals can allow life sciences companies to maximize products' potential across a range of geographic areas, but these deals also present unique challenges requiring highly bespoke structures that can make or break the value of an asset, say attorneys at Covington.

  • A Look At 2024 NIL Rights And Economies In College Sports

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    Permutations in the arena of name, image and likeness affecting collegiate athletics have continued unabated this year, and practitioners and industry representatives should anticipate significant activity at schools and continuing legal changes at the state level, say attorneys at Pillsbury.

  • Legislation Most Likely To Pass In Lame Duck Session

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    As Congress begins its five-week post-election lame duck session, attorneys at Greenberg Traurig break down the legislative priorities and which proposals can be expected to pass.

  • Copyright Questions Surround AI Music Platform Suits

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    If recent lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America against two artificial intelligence music platform developers — who maintain that use of copyrighted works to train AI models constitutes fair use — go to trial, this novel issue will make for potentially precedent-setting decisions, says intellectual property lawyer Eric Lane.

  • Patent Marking Steps After Fed. Circ. Opens Lanham Act Door

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    Following the Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Crocs v. Effervescent, which seemingly revives private actors’ ability to bring false patent marking claims under the Lanham Act, marketing and legal teams should be careful to avoid advertisement language that implies nonexistent patent rights, says Jeffrey Ratinoff at Spencer Fane.

  • Litigation Strategies In View Of New Double Patenting Rulings

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    Recent Federal Circuit decisions, including in Allergan v. MSN, raise several issues that patent owners should understand and consider addressing proactively regarding obviousness-type double patenting, at least in their prosecution strategies, say attorneys at Dentons.

  • Promoting Diversity In The Selection Of ADR Neutrals

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    Choosing neutrals from diverse backgrounds is an important step in promoting inclusion in the legal profession, and it can enhance the legitimacy and public perception of alternative dispute resolution proceedings, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

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