Overall
Key cases
Industries
Intellectual Property
Labor & Employment
Corporate
Practice Areas
Intellectual Property
-
May 22, 2013
Bank Software Developer Faces Suit Over Trade Secret Theft
Spear Marketing Inc. launched a Texas state court suit Monday alleging ARGO Data Resource Corp. used corporate espionage to steal its proprietary bank cash management system, following a federal judge's decision last week refusing to remand a related suit.
-
May 22, 2013
Samsung, Xerox Among Cos. Caught In Monitoring Patent Blitz
Patent holding company Penovia LLC filed separate infringement suits against nine companies including Samsung Electronics America Inc., Ricoh USA and Xerox Corp. in Texas federal court Tuesday, accusing them of infringing the company's patented technology for remotely monitoring office machines.
-
May 22, 2013
Nintendo Wants Review Of Patent Claim Ruling In Wii IP Row
Nintendo Co. Ltd. argued Wednesday that the U.S. International Trade Commission’s chief administrative law judge had not properly considered its arguments to invalidate a patent claim by an interactive game company accusing Nintendo's Wii products of infringing three patents.
-
May 22, 2013
Latest Anti-Troll Bill Would Overhaul Patent Law
A new piece of legislation aimed at cracking down on the tactics of so-called patent trolls, introduced in Congress on Wednesday, would make significant changes to patent law, setting stringent new pleading requirements, restricting discovery and creating a "loser pays" system.
-
May 22, 2013
Lexmark, Abbyy Can't Shake Nuance Software Patent Suit
A California federal judge refused Wednesday to dismiss Nuance Communications Inc.'s patent infringement suit against Lexmark International Inc. and Abbyy Software House, and ordered Abbyy to fork over more than $130,000 in sanctions for its conduct during the discovery process.
-
May 22, 2013
Netgear Ducks Claims in Ruckus' Trade Secrets Suit
A California federal judge Wednesday tossed claims that Netgear Inc. breached a technology-license agreement with Ruckus Wireless Inc. and shared the company's trade secrets with a rival, agreeing with Netgear's argument that those claims, which Ruckus added to its patent infringement suit in March, belong in state court.
-
May 22, 2013
Banana Republic Can't Trademark 'BR Monogram'
Gap Inc.'s Banana Republic has lost a bid to win trademark control over the name of its upscale “BR Monogram” line, which a trademark appeals board ruled was both merely descriptive and deceptively misdescriptive.
-
May 22, 2013
Sens. Push ITC Against Import Bans Over Essential Patents
Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., urged the U.S. International Trade Commission on Tuesday against allowing companies to use their standard-essential patents to block the import of rivals' products, saying that could undermine the standard-setting process.
-
May 22, 2013
Test Strip Maker Barred From Using J&J Unit's Logo In Ads
A California federal judge on Tuesday granted Johnson & Johnson unit LifeScan Inc.’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking Shasta Technologies LLC from using LifeScan’s intellectual property in advertising its generic test strips for use in LifeScan glucose meters, saying the injunction would prevent customer confusion.
-
May 22, 2013
USPTO Should Be Spared From Budget Cuts, IP Group Says
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is likely exempt from the severe budget cuts called for under sequestration because, unlike other government agencies, the office is funded by user fees, American Intellectual Property Law Association President Jeffrey Lewis told the White House on Tuesday.
-
May 22, 2013
Porn Troll Hit With More Fines For Not Paying Sanctions
A judge who sanctioned so-called porn copyright troll Prenda Law this month and said it should face racketeering charges rejected the firm's bid to stay the punishment Tuesday and began fining it $7,000 for every day it doesn't pay the sanctions.
-
May 22, 2013
Q&A With Knobbe's Ron Schoenbaum
A challenging part of having less than a week to rate and summarize more than 1,000 patents and the portfolio as a whole was staying awake while reading patents late at night, says Ronald Schoenbaum, a partner with Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP.
-
May 22, 2013
Haynes And Boone Adds Veteran Patent Expert In Austin
Haynes and Boone LLP bolstered its intellectual property group in Austin, Texas, with an experienced patent prosecutor from boutique Zagorin O’Brien Graham LLP, the firm announced Tuesday.
-
May 22, 2013
Vt. Hits Patent Troll With Consumer Protection Suit
Vermont's attorney general on Wednesday said it had sued a so-called patent troll for violating the state's consumer protection laws, a case the state said was the first of its kind.
-
May 22, 2013
Intuit Escapes Trademark Claim In H&R Block False Ad Suit
Intuit Inc. on Wednesday escaped a trademark infringement claim in a false advertising suit over commercials for its TurboTax software when a Missouri federal judge rejected the novel theory that the ads would cause consumer confusion about the quality of H&R Block Inc.'s services.
-
May 22, 2013
Roku Asks ITC To Toss Patent Suit Over TV Box Controllers
Streaming video device maker Roku Inc. urged the U.S. International Trade Commission on Monday to dismiss allegations by STMicroelectronics Inc. that it was importing products infringing ST patents, saying there was no domestic industry to protect by banning the imports.
-
May 22, 2013
Twitter Launches Employee-Friendly Patent Framework
Twitter Inc. said Tuesday that its newly issued patent covering its ubiquitous pull-down-to-refresh feature will be covered by the "Innovators Patent Agreement," a type of patent assignment agreement that gives inventors greater control over how their employers may use their patents.
-
May 22, 2013
Publishers Say GSU 'Distracting' 11th Circ. In Copyright Row
Georgia State University is relying on “blindered” arguments to support its practice of distributing copyrighted reading materials to students through e-reserves, three academic publishers told the Eleventh Circuit on Monday, urging the court to reverse a ruling that the practice was mostly protected by fair use.
-
May 22, 2013
Patent Attys' USPTO Applications Protected By Fair Use
Winstead PC attorneys didn’t infringe copyrights for scientific articles owned by publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc. and others by making copies of and reviewing the literature for use in patent applications without buying a license, a Texas federal judge held Wednesday.
-
May 22, 2013
Software Patent Ruling Shouldn't Change Exams, USPTO Says
A deeply divided Federal Circuit ruling on whether software is eligible for a patent does not change how such patents should be examined, but does provide some useful guidance, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office told its examiners recently.
Expert Analysis
-
K-V Case Tests Limits Of ITC Jurisdiction
As illustrated by the recent K-V Pharmaceutical Co. case, the U.S. International Trade Commission will likely closely review complaints that could usurp the power of another federal agency and potentially undermine that agency's application of its own rules, say Eric Fues and Mareesa Frederick of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner LLP.
-
An Update On Joint Infringement In Cloud Computing
Assuming a feature of cloud-based email service warrants patent protection, a method claim may need to cover the conduct of two or three entities that act in concert to put the email application into service. For claims of that sort, the Akamai decision makes proving induced infringement easier, says Steven Amundson of Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP.
-
Supreme Court Got It Right In Seed Dispute
On May 13, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Federal Circuit and ruled that a farmer infringed Monsanto Co.’s patents for Roundup Ready seeds by growing subsequent, unauthorized generations beyond the first, authorized planting. The court did not set clear limits on the holding, which may be the source of controversy going forward, say attorneys with McAndrews Held & Malloy Ltd.
-
Calif. To Draw The Lines In Disparagement Liability
The California Supreme Court's upcoming decision in Hartford Casualty Insurance Co. v. Swift Distribution Inc. will resolve a hot debate about the scope of implied disparagement liability under California law, likely determining whether insurers must defend lawsuits involving allegations of intellectual property infringement, unfair competition and false advertising, says Tyler Gerking of Farella Braun & Martel LLP.
-
CLS Bank Ruling Provides No Guidance On Patent Eligibility
The decision in CLS Bank International v. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. spotlights the Federal Circuit’s serious divisions on Section 101 analysis. In the face of these divisions, decisions by Federal Circuit panels as to patent eligibility of specific claims under Section 101 will continue to be inconsistent, say Charles Macedo and David Goldberg of Amster Rothstein & Ebenstein LLP.
-
What Patent Attorneys Should Know About New Ethics Rules
The new ethics rules for patent prosecution practitioners are largely based on a version of the American Bar Association's model ethics rules, and thus attorney practitioners will typically already be quite familiar with most of the requirements. But, in some cases, the rules differ from typical state ethics rules and/or the ABA model rules, says Carl Schwartz of Quarles & Brady LLP.
-
DOJ Biz Review Letter Highlights Patent Pool Concerns
The U.S. Department of Justice's unusual business review letter in response to Intellectual Property Exchange International Inc.'s proposed financial exchange for licensing and trading IP rights serves as a useful reminder of the benefits and drawbacks of the business review letter process and, perhaps, a cautionary note on group patent licensing activities, say William Dolan and Geoffrey Oliver of Jones Day.
-
Viacom V. YouTube Provides Some Insight Into DMCA
Though many of the issues in Viacom International Inc. v. YouTube Inc. are still unsettled in light of the strong likelihood of additional appeal in the Second Circuit, the district court’s analysis provides a basic framework for the Southern District of New York’s interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provisions, say attorneys with Latham & Watkins LLP.
-
E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.
-
Domestic Industry — Bellwether Of Change For Section 337
While domestic industry will continue to be shaped by developments in law and politics, recent trends in heightened standards for this Section 337 element reinforce certain concepts that can inform a company’s strategies for maneuvering through a U.S. International Trade Commission investigation, says Jamie Underwood of Alston & Bird LLP.