Intellectual Property

  • March 27, 2025

    Disney Seeks $5.7M Atty Fee Award After 'Moana' IP Trial Win

    The Walt Disney Co. sought $5.7 million in attorney fees Tuesday after beating an animator's trade secret and copyright suit claiming it ripped off his Polynesian adventure story to create "Moana," arguing he engaged in bad-faith tactics like forging evidence, perjuring himself and improperly inflating purported damages.

  • March 27, 2025

    Texas IP Attys Get $60K Sanction For Unauthorized Practice

    A San Francisco federal magistrate judge has leveled more than $60,000 in personal sanctions against Texas intellectual property lawyer William Ramey III and two other attorneys from his high-volume patent firm, saying two of them practiced law without a California license in numerous cases to escape paying out-of-state admission fees of $328 per lawyer.

  • March 27, 2025

    Fox Rothschild Brings On McCarter & English IP Ace In NJ

    Fox Rothschild LLP grew its Princeton, New Jersey, office this week with the addition of an intellectual property partner from McCarter & English LLP specializing in patent prosecution for medical devices, technology-enabled hardware and more.

  • March 27, 2025

    Life Sciences REIT Says Ex-Employee Stole Trade Secrets

    Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. filed suit against a former employee in Massachusetts federal court, alleging that he stole a trove of proprietary information as he was planning to leave the company.

  • March 27, 2025

    Dutch Software Co. Tells 4th Circ. To Pause Trial After Atty DQ

    A Dutch software company is taking another stab at delaying its impending trademark trial with an American rival, telling the Fourth Circuit that it should not be forced to proceed after the district court held one of its attorneys in contempt and essentially disqualified him.

  • March 27, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Stay Injunction Compelling Fed. Worker Rehire

    A split Ninth Circuit panel has refused to block an injunction compelling the Trump administration to reinstate about 16,000 probationary employees to six federal agencies, saying the administration will likely lose its argument that the agencies weren't acting on an order from above when they fired the workers.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Faults USPTO's 'Arbitrary' Ruling In BMW Patent Suit

    A Virginia federal judge agreed with BMW that former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal erred when she vacated a reexamination of a cruise control patent being challenged by BMW, finding that the former director didn't adequately explain her analysis.

  • March 26, 2025

    Sotomayor Urges Caution On Nondelegation Doctrine Revamp

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor cautioned her colleagues during oral arguments Wednesday against using a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's administration of a broadband subsidy program as a way to resurrect the long-dormant nondelegation doctrine. Several conservative justices, however, seemed willing to disregard that admonition.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Trims Copyright Case Against Microsoft, OpenAI

    A New York federal judge Wednesday kept alive news organizations' direct and contributory copyright infringement claims accusing Microsoft and OpenAI of ripping off their content to train generative artificial intelligence while trimming claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but giving the plaintiffs a chance to rework their allegations.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Newman Maintains Fitness Probe Must Be Transferred

    Counsel for suspended 97-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman on Wednesday told the D.C. Circuit that its decision to transfer ethics complaints against a senior district court judge, lodged by his own colleagues, supported her contention that her fellow circuit judges shouldn't investigate her fitness to remain on the bench.

  • March 26, 2025

    Ye Stole IP From Artist Who Opposes Antisemitism, Suit Says

    Ye has been sued for copyright infringement in California federal court over his song "Gun To My Head," which allegedly sampled a track by a German artist who is descended from Holocaust survivors and opposed to the rapper's public antisemitism.

  • March 26, 2025

    USPTO Director To Take Lead In Considering PTAB Denials

    Citing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's "workload needs," the acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced Wednesday that she will make decisions on whether every petition challenging a patent should be denied for discretionary reasons before the board considers the merits.

  • March 26, 2025

    Ramey Slams BlackBerry's IP Fee Win As 'Manifest Injustice'

    Ramey LLP and its client Silent Communications LLC urged U.S. District Judge Alan Albright Thursday to amend his finding that Ramey is liable for covering BlackBerry's attorney fees, estimated to be nearly $900,000, after filing a patent lawsuit in bad faith, arguing that the judgment is a "manifest injustice."

  • March 26, 2025

    Coalition Says Trump Admin Flouted Federal Rehiring Order

    The Trump administration responded to an injunction compelling it to rehire over 15,000 fired probationary employees by placing them on leave, not bringing them back to work, a coalition of advocates for the workers told a California federal judge Wednesday, saying the administration hasn't complied with the injunction.

  • March 26, 2025

    Full Fed. Circ. Won't Look At Injunction On MSN's Generic Drug

    The full Federal Circuit won't revisit a panel's January order barring MSN Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. from launching a generic version of Novartis' bestseller, the cardiovascular drug Entresto, as part of a flurry of moves in litigation related to the treatment.

  • March 26, 2025

    Trump Asks Again For End To 'Dubious' Isaac Hayes Suit

    President Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that Isaac Hayes' estate can't show it owns the rights to the 1966 song "Hold On, I'm Coming," arguing its "dubious chain of copyright ownership" can't overcome his bid to dismiss the legendary musician's estate's suit over his playing the song at campaign events.

  • March 26, 2025

    Court Holds On Tight To 'What I Like About You' Band's Row

    A Michigan federal judge said Wednesday the lead singer of The Romantics must face a bandmate's demands for a detailed accounting of the band's finances and allegations the singer has been withholding royalties and revenue from performances from a shared company.

  • March 26, 2025

    Women Make Up 13% Of Attys In Front Of The PTAB

    Women account for 13% of attorneys appearing in front of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in post-grant proceedings going back to the board's founding in 2012 despite comprising up to 30% of all patent attorneys, according to a report from the PTAB Bar Association.

  • March 26, 2025

    Walgreens, Kroger Claim Takeda Cut Illegal TWi Generics Deal

    Walgreens, Kroger, Albertsons and H-E-B hit Takeda and TWi Pharmaceuticals with an antitrust suit in California federal court Tuesday, accusing the pharmaceutical companies of conspiring to delay the release of the generic version of Takeda's heartburn medication Dexilant, causing the retailers to pay more for the brand-name drug.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Blocks Build-A-Bear's Bid To Inspect 3K Squishmallows

    A California federal judge has rejected an attempt from Build-A-Bear Workshop to physically inspect thousands of Squishmallows stuffed toys in order to defend itself against trade dress infringement claims by the company that makes them, saying the defendant's request is overbroad and unnecessary.

  • March 26, 2025

    Copyright Claims Against Anthropic Over Lyrics Axed For Now

    A California federal judge on Wednesday dealt a blow to several music publishers that have accused artificial intelligence company Anthropic of ripping off lyrics in developing its large language model Claude, dismissing some copyright claims less than a day after denying a request to prohibit Anthropic from using their content for training.

  • March 26, 2025

    Whirlpool's Mixer TM Award Of $27M Is Enough, Judge Says

    A Texas federal judge has permanently barred two Chinese companies from infringing the exterior design of Whirlpool's iconic KitchenAid stand mixer but denied Whirlpool's request to increase a $27 million award it recently won at trial, saying Whirlpool's award, along with the permanent injunction, was more than enough.

  • March 26, 2025

    NCAA Can't Use NY Case To Halt NC State '83 Team's NIL Suit

    North Carolina's business court refused to pause an antitrust lawsuit brought by members of the 1983 North Carolina State University men's basketball national championship team who accuse the NCAA of illegally using their likenesses, ruling the organization had failed to show it would suffer a "substantial injustice" without a stay.

  • March 26, 2025

    Toronto Exchange Says Court In Texas Can't Hear TM Suit

    The Toronto Stock Exchange says a Texas federal court lacks jurisdiction over the Texas Stock Exchange's trademark lawsuit, telling the court it only submitted a cease-and-desist letter to stop the nascent stock exchange from using allegedly similar marks.

  • March 26, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Affirms Apple PTAB Win Over Location-Tracking IP

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday backed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that Apple was able to show numerous claims in a patent covering location-tracking beacons were invalid, handing another win to the tech giant in an intellectual property fight with the patent owner.

Expert Analysis

  • Improving Comms Between Trial Attys And Tech Witnesses

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    In major litigation involving complex technology, attorneys should employ certain strategies to collaborate with companies' technical personnel more effectively to enhance both the attorney's understanding of the subject matter and the expert's ability to provide effective testimony in court, say attorneys at Buchalter.

  • Navigating Title IX Compliance In The NIL Era

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    As universities push to move more name, image and likeness activity in-house, it's unclear how the NCAA and its members will square implementation of the House settlement with Title IX requirements, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • Series

    Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

  • DeepSeek AI Investigation Could Lead To IP Law Precedents

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    The investigation by OpenAI and Microsoft into DeepSeek's artificial intelligence model raises interesting legal concerns involving intellectual property and contract law, including potential trade secret appropriation and fair use questions, say Saishruti Mutneja and Raghav Gurbaxani.

  • Opinion

    New DOJ Leaders Should Curb Ill-Conceived Prosecutions

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    First-of-their-kind cases have seemingly led to a string of overly aggressive prosecutions in recent years, so newly sworn-in leaders of the U.S. Department of Justice should consider creating reporting channels to stop unwise prosecutions before they snowball, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • A Look At Drug Price Negotiation Program's Ongoing Impact

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    More than two years after the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and the rapid implementation of the drug price negotiation program, attorneys at Ropes & Gray discuss how the IRA has influenced licensing strategies, and how maximum fair prices under the law have economically affected certain drugs.

  • Opinion

    Congress Must Consider Accurate Data About Patent Thickets

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    If Congress revisits a controversial bill this year aimed at limiting the number of patents pharmaceutical manufacturers could assert, it must make sure to act based on accurate reports — such as a recent U.S. Patent and Trademark Office study that found no evidence of patent thicketing, says David Kappos at the Council for Innovation Promotion.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • Opinion

    DOGE Should Address Inefficiency In The Patent Marketplace

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    Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency is well positioned to identify to Congress the necessary variability needed among individual patent rights, ensuring that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's current inefficiencies do not impede promising inventions from reaching the market, says John Powers at Powers IP.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • IP, Licensing, M&A Trends To Watch In Life Sciences This Year

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    2025 promises to continue an exciting trajectory for the life sciences industry, with major trends ranging from global harmonization of intellectual property to cross-border licensing activity and an increase of nontraditional financial participants in the mergers and acquisition space, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Drug Pricing Policy Trends To Expect In 2025 And Beyond

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    Though 2025 may bring more of the same in the realm of drug pricing policy, business as usual entails a sustained, high level of legal and policy developments across at least six major areas, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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