Intellectual Property

  • November 12, 2024

    Navajo Co. Says Paralegal Blocking Return Of Privileged Docs

    A Navajo Nation natural resources company is suing a former paralegal in Colorado state court to enforce a settlement requiring the return of confidential documents that she allegedly emailed to herself, accusing the paralegal of "erecting unreasonable roadblocks" to their agreement.

  • November 12, 2024

    BREAKING: Vidal To Leave USPTO For Private Sector

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal is stepping down from her role at the agency and will be heading back to the private sector in mid-December, she said in a Tuesday letter.

  • November 12, 2024

    Trial Consultant Agrees To Keep Ex-Employer's Biz Info Secret

    An ex-employee for jury analysis firm Jury-X has agreed to avoid using the company's confidential information while its trade secrets lawsuit unfolds, according to a stipulation filed Tuesday in North Carolina federal court.

  • November 12, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Won't Revive Billable Hours Patent Against RELX

    The Federal Circuit won't undo a New York federal judge's finding that a Realtime Tracker Inc. patent for tracking billable hours was invalid as an abstract idea, backing a win for LexisNexis parent company RELX.

  • November 08, 2024

    Apple Didn't Hire Cercacor CTO To Steal Watch IP, Ex-VP Says

    A retired Apple executive defended the tech giant Friday in Masimo's trade secret suit over pulse oximetry technology, testifying in California federal court that Apple didn't hire a Masimo spinoff's chief technology office in order to obtain confidential information for the Apple Watch and never received any such information.

  • November 08, 2024

    Justices Urged To Review Fed. Circ.'s 1-Word PTAB Decisions

    The U.S. Supreme Court must reckon with the Federal Circuit's "disconcerting pattern" of affirming decisions from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board with one-word orders, patent holder ParkerVision Inc. has told the justices, saying that by failing to explain its reasoning, the court is creating uncertainty that is stifling innovation.

  • November 08, 2024

    PPG Seeks $23M Fees In Sherwin-Williams Coating IP Suit

    PPG Industries told a Pennsylvania federal judge Friday that Sherwin-Williams should pay it $23 million in attorney fees after the Federal Circuit backed a jury's verdict invalidating five paint coating patents, saying the litigation was "premised on directly contradicting" admissions Sherwin made to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  • November 08, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs Invalidation Of Geolocation IP Under Alice

    The Federal Circuit won't breathe new life into GeoComply's infringement suit against its geolocation competitor XPoint over an anti-location-spoofing patent, affirming a lower court's dismissal.

  • November 08, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Unclear If Teva Inhaler IP Belongs In Orange Book

    A trio of Federal Circuit judges took a complex question tied to whether Teva should be able to include inhaler patents in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book and tried to make it simple: Does owning a patent for a steering wheel mean you claim the whole car?

  • November 08, 2024

    Facts In Emails Aren't Confidential For Deposition, Judge Says

    A government contractor implicated in allegations that the U.S. infringed patents for contactless data carriers must turn over portions of a former employee's emails because the correspondence contains facts not protected by attorney-client privilege, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled.

  • November 08, 2024

    Ex-Elanco IP Lawyer Lodges Gender Discrimination Suit

    A female former in-house intellectual property lawyer at Elanco Animal Health Inc. sued the pharmaceutical company for gender discrimination in Indiana federal court, alleging she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a less qualified man who later mistreated the women on staff.

  • November 08, 2024

    Chancery Tosses Microchip Co.'s Tech Licensor Challenge

    A Delaware vice chancellor on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Swiss microchip maker u-blox AG against tech licensor InterDigital Inc., finding among other points that u-blox was barred from moving forward with potentially unsettled claims arising from the same issues in a California federal court case.

  • November 08, 2024

    Justices Urged To Review Amazon Patent Program Case

    A company alleging patent infringement through Amazon's patent evaluation program is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its appeal of a Federal Circuit ruling that said it had to face a declaratory judgment suit in the purported infringer's home state.

  • November 08, 2024

    White & Case Adds Life Sciences IP Atty From A&O Shearman

    A veteran life sciences patent litigator has jumped from Allen Overy Shearman Sterling to White & Case LLP in New York, expanding the firm’s capabilities to represent medical and pharmaceutical industry clients in complex litigation.

  • November 08, 2024

    Logan Paul's Drink Co. Blasts Olympic Committee's TM Suit

    Prime Hydration, a sports beverage company co-founded by social media influencer and wrestler Logan Paul, has struck back at a trademark infringement complaint from the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, accusing it of taking a "shotgun pleading" approach without supporting its claims.

  • November 08, 2024

    New Patent Filings Hit Global Record, WIPO Says

    A new report from the World Intellectual Property Organization has found that new patent filings worldwide reached a record high in 2023, as patent applications exceeded 3.5 million for the first time.

  • November 08, 2024

    Disney Hit With Suit Over Streaming Media Patents

    The Walt Disney Co. and subsidiaries like Hulu and ESPN have been hit with a federal lawsuit claiming that the entertainment giant's various streaming services infringe a series of media patents owned by Adeia Technologies Inc.

  • November 08, 2024

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen collapsed German airline Air Berlin take action against its former auditor KPMG, the associate editor at The Spectator hit with a libel claim by a mosque over the far-right riots that took place in August and British licensing authority the Performing Right Society sue Parklife Manchester and four other festival organizers. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • November 07, 2024

    Oakland Airport Name Has Travelers Flying In Circles, SF Says

    Attorneys for San Francisco urged a California federal judge Thursday to block Oakland from renaming its airport the "San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport," saying travelers are mistakenly showing up to San Francisco International Airport instead of Oakland's hub because the new name is "dangerously and confusingly similar."

  • November 07, 2024

    OpenAI Beats Copyright Suit By 2 News Websites, For Now

    OpenAI preliminarily escaped one of the many copyright suits it's facing from journalism publishers on Thursday, as a New York federal judge found that two alternative news websites didn't sufficiently allege harm from the removal of author information in ChatGPT training sets.

  • November 07, 2024

    Teva Fails To Convince Judge Inhaler Patents Require Drug

    Five patents for an inhaler made by Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. don't require an active drug's presence in the device, a New Jersey federal judge has ruled, agreeing with Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s interpretation of claim language in the brand-name drugmaker's infringement suit against Amneal, a generic pharmaceutical firm.

  • November 07, 2024

    Nike Nabs Injunction In Air Jordan Knockoff Suit But Not $4M

    A New Jersey federal judge on Thursday barred a small clothing company and its founder from selling knockoffs of Nike's iconic Air Jordan 1 High sneakers but declined to grant Nike $4 million in statutory damages, saying Nike hadn't yet given him enough information to assess the damages.

  • November 07, 2024

    Masimo Spinoff's Ex-CTO Denies Giving Apple Trade Secrets

    Cercacor Laboratories' former chief technology officer testified Thursday that he privately emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook offering to help the tech giant become a top health and wellness device brand, but denied accusations that he gave Apple any of the Masimo spinoff's pulse oximetry trade secrets.

  • November 07, 2024

    Santa May Come Early For Mariah Carey In 'Christmas' IP Suit

    A California federal judge said Thursday that she is "inclined" to grant Mariah Carey and others a victory in a copyright infringement suit over her song "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and sanction the plaintiffs after the pop singer's side alleged they made legally frivolous arguments.

  • November 07, 2024

    Litigation Funders Look For Attorneys They Can Trust

    Litigation funders often see the attorneys they would be working with as the most important element of whether to invest in a case, several members of the industry said on a panel at the University of Texas School of Law's Advanced Patent Law Institute.

Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • Series

    Playing Ultimate Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    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

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    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

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    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.

  • Curious Case Of FTC's Amicus Brief In Teva Fed. Circ. Appeal

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    Attorneys at BCLP explore the Federal Trade Commission's backing of Amneal's Orange Book-delisting efforts on Teva ahead of a key Federal Circuit hearing in a case between the two pharmaceutical companies, and wonder if the FTC amicus brief indicates a future trend, especially in the next administration.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Metadata

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    Several recent rulings reflect the competing considerations that arise when parties dispute the form of production for electronically stored information, underscoring that counsel must carefully consider how to produce and request reasonably usable data, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • When 'Patented' Goes Beyond Inventorship In False Ad Cases

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    The Federal Circuit's recent false advertising holding in Crocs v. Effervescent is significant because it offers a nuanced yet realistic understanding of what false claims about a product's status as "patented" can mean, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • The Fed. Circ. In October: Aetna And License-Term Review

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision that Aetna's credit card licensing agreement with AlexSam did not give the insurer immunity from patent infringement claims serves to warn licensees to read their contracts carefully, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Opinion

    PREVAIL Bill Is Another Misguided Attempt To Restrict PTAB

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    The decade-long campaign against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board — currently focused on the PREVAIL Act that's slated for markup in the Senate — is not really about procedural issues, and it is not aimed at securing more accurate patentability decisions, says Clear IP's Joseph Matal, former acting director at the USPTO.

  • Striking A Balance Between AI Use And Attorney Well-Being

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    As the legal industry increasingly adopts generative artificial intelligence tools to boost efficiency, leaders must note the hidden costs of increased productivity, and work to protect attorneys’ well-being while unlocking AI’s full potential, says Ed Sohn at Factor.

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