Intellectual Property

  • January 14, 2025

    8th Circ. Backs Real Estate Agents' Win In Copyright Case

    The Eighth Circuit on Tuesday backed a lower court ruling that let real estate agents off the hook on claims they infringed a home designer's copyrights, agreeing that the inclusion of floor plans in listings of homes he designed were fair use.

  • January 14, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Judge Chides Attys For Omitting Key Argument

    The Federal Circuit's chief judge got frustrated Tuesday when neither party in a dispute over a 3G messaging patent had addressed what she considered to be the analysis' starting point.

  • January 14, 2025

    NCAA, Big Ten Argue Ex-Players' $50M NIL Suit Too Late

    The NCAA and Big Ten Network have asked a Michigan federal judge to toss a proposed class action from football players who are seeking more than $50 million in compensation for their names, images and likenesses, arguing their claims are untimely.

  • January 14, 2025

    9th Circ. Says Moveable Sculptures Protected By Copyright

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday revived a toy company's copyright infringement case against fashion retailer Aritzia over "kinetic" sculptures that appeared in window displays at its stores, rejecting Aritzia's arguments that the art pieces can't be considered "fixed" under copyright law just because they're manipulable.

  • January 14, 2025

    SEC Sues Elon Musk Over Late Twitter Buy-Up Disclosure

    Elon Musk violated securities laws by failing to timely disclose his initial buy-up of Twitter stock ahead of his $44 billion acquisition of the company, allowing him to purchase shares at artificially low prices, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged in a D.C. federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.

  • January 14, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Says Patent App Becomes Prior Art At Filing Date

    When determining if a patent application counts as prior art, parties should look to the date the application was filed, not when it was published, the Federal Circuit held Tuesday in an appeal upholding the invalidation of Lynk Labs' LED patent claims.

  • January 14, 2025

    Meta Atty Quits IP Case Over Zuckerberg's 'Toxic Masculinity'

    An attorney helping defend Meta Platforms in copyright litigation brought by artists who claim their content was used to train the large language model Llama has dropped the tech company as his client, citing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's "descent into toxic masculinity and Neo-Nazi madness" in a LinkedIn post.

  • January 14, 2025

    Startup Drops Patent Case Against Google Ahead Of Trial

    An Oregon startup has agreed to drop its patent infringement case against Google, a month before the dispute was set to go before a jury in Waco, Texas.

  • January 14, 2025

    USPTO Outlines Vision On AI Work Moving Forward

    Federal intellectual property officials say they are finding ways to navigate the world of artificial intelligence by coming up with policies to push for more innovation in the space and make sure its own workforce is up to speed on the technology.

  • January 14, 2025

    Hytera Asks Justices To Check Whether DTSA Applies Abroad

    China-based Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd., which lost a trade secrets trial resulting in a $764 million jury award for Motorola Solutions that has since been reduced, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review whether the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 can apply extraterritorially.

  • January 14, 2025

    Trade Secret Suit Sends New Zealand Software Co. Into Ch. 15

    A New Zealand company that develops actuarial software products supported by artificial intelligence commenced a Chapter 15 bankruptcy case in Delaware Tuesday, saying ongoing trade secrets litigation had harmed its sales and operations.

  • January 14, 2025

    US Patent Grants Increase In 2024 After 4-Year Downswing

    The number of patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ticked upward in 2024 after a four-year slump, while the agency fielded another all-time high number of patent applications, according to a report released Tuesday.

  • January 14, 2025

    OpenAI Products Not Designed To Evade Paywalls, Judge Told

    Lawyers for OpenAI and Microsoft spent Tuesday morning trying to convince a New York federal judge to trim down news organizations' copyright infringement cases against them, saying large language models aren't designed to spit out entire articles so that readers can avoid paywalls.

  • January 14, 2025

    Eli Lilly Says Colo. Clinic Selling Deceptive Weight Loss Drug

    Eli Lilly & Co. has sued a Denver health clinic for allegedly selling "unapproved and potentially dangerous" drugs marketed to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, which the pharmaceutical company said could give consumers the false impression that its U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved medications don't work.

  • January 13, 2025

    Stanford AI Expert Reamed For Erroneous AI-Generated Brief

    A Minnesota federal judge on Friday threw out an erroneous expert declaration prepared by a Stanford University expert on artificial intelligence in litigation over the state's law on deepfakes, finding that the fake, AI-generated sources in his declaration "shatters his credibility with this court."

  • January 13, 2025

    IPRs Aren't 'Voluntary,' Dish Tells Justices In Fee Fight

    Dish Network LLC is kicking up a fight at the U.S. Supreme Court over the question of whether filing petitions at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board is "voluntary" or not, in a bid to get "exceptional" plaintiffs to pay for litigation costs there.

  • January 13, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Told Google Making Up 'New Rules Of Evidence'

    A smart-home energy startup says Google and its supporters are trying to use a Federal Circuit appeal in a $20 million patent case to "craft entirely new rules of evidence out of whole cloth."

  • January 13, 2025

    Microsoft, Patent Firm Ramey Lose Dueling Sanctions Bids

    A Texas federal judge denied dueling sanctions motions Monday in a post-litigation spat between Microsoft and prolific patent firm Ramey LLP, holding that neither party met the standard to win disciplinary fees from the other.

  • January 13, 2025

    Justices Urged To Uphold 'Sanctity' Of $11M Patent Verdict

    The Federal Circuit disrespected "the sanctity of jury verdicts" when ordering a jury to revisit Provisur Technologies' $10.5 million willful infringement award, the company told the U.S. Supreme Court in a new petition.

  • January 13, 2025

    Vimeo Defeats Recording Owners' DMCA Appeal At 2nd Circ.

    The Second Circuit said Monday it won't revive copyright claims from a group of music rights holders over lip-sync videos posted on Vimeo by its users, saying a safe harbor under federal copyright law protects the website.

  • January 13, 2025

    Hytera Pleads Guilty To Stealing Motorola Trade Secrets

    Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd. pled guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy to steal trade secrets from Motorola Solutions relating to its digital mobile radios, avoiding a trial scheduled next month in Chicago federal court.

  • January 13, 2025

    Ozempic Maker Says Atlanta Clinic Misuses TM To Sell Meds

    Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical company that makes weight loss drugs Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy, filed suit against an Atlanta anti-aging treatment center in Georgia federal court Friday, alleging trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices.

  • January 13, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Mulls ITC Domestic Industry Rule In Lashify Case

    A Federal Circuit panel on Monday questioned the U.S. International Trade Commission's holding that sales and marketing activities by eyelash extension company Lashify weren't enough to allow it to prevail in a patent suit, with one judge saying the ITC's reading "makes no sense."

  • January 13, 2025

    NC Judge Rebuffs Redo In Pool Co.'s $16M False Ads Trial

    A North Carolina federal court said Monday it did not err in letting a Chinese pool parts supplier's American rival introduce evidence that its "Made in the USA" claims misled customers, denying the company a do-over on a false advertising and unfair business practices trial that resulted in a $16 million judgment against it.

  • January 13, 2025

    Sunoco Wants More From Butane Blending Infringement

    Sunoco told a Federal Circuit panel that a Delaware jury vastly undervalued its patented system for blending butane with gasoline when it awarded just $12 million in damages for infringement by Magellan Midstream and its joint venture, claiming the district court unfairly excluded its expert's analysis, driving the undercount.

Expert Analysis

  • Why India May Become A Major Patent Litigation Forum

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    India is reinventing itself with the goal of becoming a global hot spot for patent litigation, with recent developments at the Delhi High Court creating incentives for plaintiffs to assert patent rights in India, say Ranganath Sudarshan at Covington and IP litigator Udit Sood.

  • Opinion

    To Lower Drug Prices, Harris Must Address Patent Thickets

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    If Vice President Kamala Harris is serious about her pledge to address high drug prices, she must begin by closing loopholes that allow pharmaceutical companies to develop patent thickets that can deter generic or biosimilar companies from entering the market, says Tahir Amin at the Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge.

  • How Methods Are Evolving In Textualist Interpretations

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    Textualists at the U.S. Supreme Court are increasingly considering new methods such as corpus linguistics and surveys to evaluate what a statute's text communicates to an ordinary reader, while lower courts even mull large language models like ChatGPT as supplements, says Kevin Tobia at Georgetown Law.

  • 5 Ways To Confront Courtroom Technology Challenges

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    Recent cybersecurity incidents highlight the vulnerabilities of our reliance on digital infrastructure, meaning attorneys must be prepared to navigate technological obstacles inside the courtroom, including those related to data security, presentation hardware, video playback and more, says Adam Bloomberg at IMS Legal Strategies.

  • The Fed. Circ. In August: Secret Sales And Public Disclosures

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    Two recent Federal Circuit rulings — Sanho v. Kaijet and Celanese International v. ITC — highlight that inventors should publicly and promptly disclose their inventions, as a secret sale will not suffice as a disclosure, and file their patent applications within a year of public disclosure, say Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm at Knobbe Martens.

  • Trending At The PTAB: Obviousness In Director Reviews

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    Three July decisions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office favoring petitioners indicate a willingness by the director to review substantive issues, such as obviousness, particularly in cases where the director believes the Patent Trial and Appeal Board provided incorrect or inadequate rationale to support its decisions, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • AI Art Ruling Shows Courts' Training Data Cases Approach

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    A California federal court’s recent ruling in Andersen v. Stability AI, where the judge refused to throw out artists’ copyright infringement claims against four companies that make or distribute software that creates images from text prompts, provides insight into how courts are handling artificial intelligence training data cases, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • FTC Focus: What Access To Patent Settlements Would Mean

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    Settling parties should adopt a series of practice tips, including specifying rationales to support specific terms, as the Federal Trade Commission seeks to expand its access to settlements before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, say Shannon McGowan and David Munkittrick at Proskauer.

  • Why Attorneys Should Consider Community Leadership Roles

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    Volunteering and nonprofit board service are complementary to, but distinct from, traditional pro bono work, and taking on these community leadership roles can produce dividends for lawyers, their firms and the nonprofit causes they support, says Katie Beacham at Kilpatrick.

  • Firms Must Offer A Trifecta Of Services In Post-Chevron World

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision overturning Chevron deference, law firms will need to integrate litigation, lobbying and communications functions to keep up with the ramifications of the ruling and provide adequate counsel quickly, says Neil Hare at Dentons.

  • Takeaways From UPC's Amgen Patent Invalidity Analysis

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    The Unified Patent Court Central Division's decision in Regeneron v. Amgen to revoke a patent for lack of inventive step is particularly clear in its reasoning and highlights the risks to patentees of the new court's central revocation powers, say Jane Evenson and Caitlin Heard at CMS.

  • How Cos. Can Leverage IP In Corporate Bankruptcy

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    In light of an increase in year-to-date Chapter 11 filings, businesses must understand the importance and value of intellectual property in corporate bankruptcy and restructuring, from contributing to enterprise value, to providing leverage in negotiations and facilitating recovery, says Gregory Campanella at Ocean Tomo.

  • 5 Tips To Succeed In A Master Of Laws Program And Beyond

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    As lawyers and recent law school graduates begin their Master of Laws coursework across the country, they should keep a few pointers in mind to get the most out of their programs and kick-start successful careers in their practice areas, says Kelley Miller at Reed Smith.

  • Examining Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Of AI Inventions

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    In light of U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data showing that patent applications for artificial intelligence inventions are likelier to get rejected based on patent-ineligible subject matter, inventors seeking protection should be aware of the difficulties and challenges pertaining to patent eligibility, say Georgios Effraimidis at NERA and Joel Lehrer at Goodwin.

  • IP Hot Topic: The Intersection Of Trademark And Antitrust Law

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    Antitrust claims – like those in the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent case against Apple – are increasingly influencing trademark disputes and enforcement practices, demonstrating how antitrust law can dilute the power of a trademark, say attorneys at Dentons.

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