Intellectual Property

  • 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.

  • March 26, 2025

    2nd Circ. Finds Pieces Missing From Lego IP Ruling

    The Second Circuit instructed a Connecticut federal judge Wednesday to rethink his decision that an injunction blocking the sale of a Lego competitor's figurines also applies to a later design, saying the lower court's failure to explain its decision suggests it "may have simply imported its prior reasoning."

  • March 26, 2025

    Venable Nabs 2 More Axinn IP Attorneys In San Francisco

    Venable LLP has added two more San Francisco-based attorneys from Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP for its intellectual property litigation-technology group.

  • March 25, 2025

    Medical Image Co. Gets Fed. Circ. To Back Ax Of Rival's IP

    A Federal Circuit ruling Tuesday affirmed administrative patent board holdings that wiped out claims in patents that cover a 3D photography system used in medical imaging and clinical trials.

  • March 25, 2025

    Intel Says Trial Should Answer License Issue In VLSI Case

    Intel Corp. told U.S. District Judge Alan Albright that a trial in its high-stakes patent infringement fight with VLSI Technology should focus on teasing out a disputed ownership structure that could inform whether the technology company has a license to use the chip patents.

  • March 25, 2025

    PTAB Leader Explains Denial Policy After Withdrawn Memo

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board's chief judge has provided guidance to the board's other members on how to decide whether to use discretion to deny review of patents based on related litigation, after a previous memo on the issue was withdrawn last month.

  • March 25, 2025

    Realtek Loses Sanctions Bid Over Alleged Patent Suit Abuse

    Taiwan's Realtek Semiconductor Corp. lost its bid in California federal court to punish a pair of patent-holding companies for "wasting party and judicial resources" in an antitrust lawsuit over a licensing deal and a series of purportedly sham patent suits in Texas.

  • March 25, 2025

    Oprah's Network Faces Suit Over 'Christmas Fumble' IP Spat

    The Oprah Winfrey Network, a Georgia production company and the spouse of the company's president were sued in federal court for allegedly stealing a Georgia screenwriter's copyrighted material to create the movie "A Christmas Fumble."

  • March 25, 2025

    Google, OpenAI Can Toss State Law Claims In IP Row

    A California federal judge has agreed to dismiss allegations made under California and Massachusetts law in suits claiming Google and OpenAI copied YouTube creators' videos to train large language models, while the creators have agreed to drop a similar case against Nvidia altogether.

  • March 25, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Upholds Meta's PTAB Win On Xerox Message Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday shot down Xerox Corp.'s bid to overturn a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that claims in its message distribution patent were invalid, handing a win to Meta in the tech giant's challenge to the patent.

  • March 25, 2025

    Drug Co. Wants Fed. Circ. To Undo Pfizer COVID Patent Win

    A Boston drug developer that lost its infringement case against Pfizer over the New York company's blockbuster Paxlovid COVID-19 treatment has told the Federal Circuit that a contentious issue regarding a typo in a patent document should have gone to a jury.

  • March 25, 2025

    Colo. Judge Rejects Sanctions Against Oil Co. In Patent Fight

    A Colorado federal judge said Tuesday that an oil and gas equipment company was in no position to seek sanctions against a competitor after making "contradictory and potentially unfounded" arguments in a patent fight, rejecting a magistrate judge's finding that the competitor violated a disclosure rule. 

  • March 25, 2025

    Sam Smith Tune Gets Close Listen In 9th Circ. Copyright Fight

    A Ninth Circuit panel considered Tuesday whether to resurrect a copyright lawsuit over pop stars Sam Smith and Normani's 2019 hit "Dancing With a Stranger," with one appellate judge observing that the song's hook shares lyrics, pitches and rhythm with that of a 2015 track called "Dancing With Strangers."

  • March 25, 2025

    ITC, Chinese Co. Urge Justices To Skip Coke Sweetener Case

    A Chinese company and the U.S. International Trade Commission are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a case from the company that developed the artificial sweetener used in Coke Zero and that wants to keep patents that were filed at the patent office after the drinks went on sale.

  • March 25, 2025

    Atty Says Netflix's Boy Scout Doc Copied Style, Not Just Facts

    A New Jersey trial lawyer who accused Netflix Inc. of infringing his copyright in its documentary about sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America pushed back against the streaming giant's dismissal bid, arguing the film copied the storytelling framework used in his own documentary.

  • March 25, 2025

    Doctor Defends Exam Saying Judge Newman Is Fit To Serve

    A neurosurgeon who examined Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman and declared her fit to serve on the bench pushed back Tuesday on criticism of his evaluation made by doctors retained by the appeals court's other judges, who have suspended the 97-year-old jurist.

  • March 25, 2025

    Meta Says Using Authors' Books For AI Training Is Fair Use

    Meta Platforms has urged a California federal judge to find that it did not violate copyright law in using material from books by more than a dozen authors to train its large language models named "Llama," saying the dispute "presents a question of existential importance" to the development of generative artificial intelligence in the U.S.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Being A Navy Reservist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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?

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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.

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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

    Author Photo

    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
    Author Photo

    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.

  • Series

    Playing Ultimate Makes Us Better Lawyers

    Author Photo

    In addition to being fun, ultimate Frisbee has improved our legal careers by emphasizing the importance of professionalism, teamwork, perseverance, enthusiasm and vulnerability, say Arunabha Bhoumik and Adam Bernstein at Regeneron. 

  • Tracking The Slow Movement Of AI Copyright Cases

    Author Photo

    The tech community may be expecting a prompt resolution on whether products generated by artificial intelligence are a fair use of copyrighted works, but legal history shows that a response to this question — at the heart of over 30 pending cases — will take years, say attorneys at White & Case.

  • The EU Design System Changes US Cos. Need To Know About

    Author Photo

    With a number of major reforms to the European Union's design protection system set to take effect in the first half of 2025, U.S. companies need to stay informed about specific details to maintain effective intellectual property management in the EU market, say lawyers at Finnegan.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Intellectual Property archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!