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Intellectual Property
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May 8, 2013
R&B Label's Atty Booted In Row Over Christina Aguilera Song
R&B label TufAmerica Inc.’s attorney was disqualified Tuesday for previously representing one of the defendants in the label's suit alleging songs including Christina Aguilera's "Ain't No Other Man" contained unauthorized samples of songs for which it claims to own the rights.
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May 8, 2013
Lady Gaga Off The Hook In Copyright Row Over Author Credit
A New Jersey federal judge Wednesday dismissed a third-party suit launched by music producer Rob Fusari seeking indemnification or contribution from pop star Lady Gaga in an underlying copyright infringement suit accusing Fusari of not properly crediting a collaborator on the singer’s songs.
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May 8, 2013
Innovus Falls Short On Latest IP Claims Against Toshiba TVs
A California federal judge nixed Innovus Prime's patent infringement suit against Toshiba Corp. on Wednesday, agreeing with Toshiba's argument that Innovus has failed to identify which of the Japanese giant's televisions allegedly copy Innovus’s patents for picture-clarity technology.
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May 8, 2013
Postal Service, IBM Beat Kiosk Patent Suit In Fed. Circ.
The Federal Circuit ruled Wednesday that IBM Corp. and the U.S. Postal Service haven't infringed a patent for automated shipping by offering customers self-service postal kiosks, affirming a lower court's findings.
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May 7, 2013
Music Publisher Can't Recoup Atty Fees In Royalties Row
A California state appeals court on Tuesday ruled that Motown's music publishing arm wasn't entitled to attorneys' fees of $640,000 in its royalties lawsuit victory over a soul musician's heirs because the company didn't move for the fees in the initial trial over copyright-misappropriation claims.
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May 7, 2013
AFP, Getty Push To Limit Damages In Twitter Copyright Suit
Agence France-Presse and Getty Images Inc. on Tuesday asked a federal judge to limit their potential damages in a lawsuit alleging they lifted a photojournalist's work off Twitter, arguing that they should not have to pay separate penalties for copyright infringement.
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May 7, 2013
Engineering Co. Allowed To See NASA's 'Robonaut' Drawings
A Minnesota robotics engineering firm can look at designs for the "robonaut" space robot that NASA developed with General Motors Corp., which the company claims infringes its patents, a federal judge ruled Monday.
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May 7, 2013
Minn. Appeals Court Revives Drug Overcharge Class Action
A Minnesota appeals court on Monday ruled that a state law barring pharmacies from profiting from the sale of generic drugs does not give rise to private claims, but revived a class action against several major pharmacies under a separate consumer fraud statute.
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May 7, 2013
Judge Calls Porn Troll A Fraud, Possible RICO Violator
A California federal judge handed down a scathing decision Tuesday against Prenda Law, a firm notorious for its porn-copyright trolling, blasting the organization's litigation operation as a fraud that deserved criminal prosecution under federal racketeering laws.
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May 7, 2013
Fed. Circ. Says Weather Patent Suit Was Tossed Too Quickly
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday vacated a lower court’s ruling that Media Weather Innovations LLC did not infringe Baron Services Inc.’s weather forecasting patent, saying Baron’s request to delay summary judgment had been improperly refused.
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May 7, 2013
Expert Wouldn't Have Aided Convicted Dow Engineer: 5th Circ.
A Louisiana judge should not have excluded a chemical engineer's expert testimony during the trade secrets trial of a former Dow Chemical Co. employee, but the testimony wouldn't have prevented the employee's conviction, the Fifth Circuit said Monday.
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May 6, 2013
Jury Finds Cellectis Patent Claims Against Rival Invalid
A federal jury in Delaware on Friday shot down Cellectis SA’s intellectual property suit against rival genetic engineering firm Precision Biosciences Inc., finding that Precision didn't literally infringe claims of a patent related to “DNA scissors” and that the patent claims asserted against Precision weren't valid.
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May 6, 2013
Facebook Agrees To Settle Timelines Trademark Row
Facebook Inc. has agreed to settle Timelines Inc.'s trademark suit in Illinois federal court accusing Facebook of jeopardizing its business through the social media giant's own Timeline service, according to a regulatory filing Facebook submitted Thursday.
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May 3, 2013
Best Buy, The Gap Can't Invalidate Gift Card Patent Claims
Retail giants including Best Buy Co. Inc. and The Gap Inc. suffered a blow Friday when a Texas federal jury refused to invalidate claims in patents covering gift card technology that the retailers are accused of infringing.
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May 3, 2013
Apple Scores Victory Over HTC In Touch-Screen Patent Fight
A U.K. appeals court handed Apple Inc. a victory Friday in its ongoing patent battle with HTC Corp., ruling an Apple patent covering touch-screen software was valid.
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May 3, 2013
Ex-Frontier Chemist Dodges Prison For Disclosing Recipes
A Utah federal judge has decided that a former Frontier Scientific Inc. chemist won't face any prison time for sending chemical recipes to India without company authorization, significantly paring a possible five-year prison sentence and more than $160,000 in fines.
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May 3, 2013
Guess Didn't Infringe Gucci Marks, Italian Court Rules
A court in Milan has rejected all claims brought by luxury retailer Guccio Gucci SpA against Guess Inc., ending the second chapter of a trademark dispute over G-logo and flora pattern trademarks, Guess said Friday.
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May 3, 2013
11th Circ. Denies Cert. Appeal In $867M Astellas Antitrust Suit
The 11th Circuit refused Thursday to let a Florida hospital appeal in hopes of winning certification of an $867 million antitrust class action accusing Astellas Pharma Inc. of improperly requiring use of its Adenoscan drug with patented cardiac tests, but the provider intends to soldier on alone.
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May 3, 2013
EMI Prevails In Duke Ellington Foreign Royalty Appeal
EMI Music Inc. has not improperly deprived heirs of Duke Ellington of “hundreds of thousands” of dollars in royalties from foreign sales of the jazz legend's recordings, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday, finding a 1961 “net receipts” contract was not ambiguous.
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May 3, 2013
Pfizer Unit Beats RICO Claims In Skelaxin Pay-For-Delay Row
A Pfizer Inc. unit successfully dodged racketeering claims in Pennsylvania state court Wednesday after a judge partially sustained preliminary objections in a suit accusing the company of conspiring with a Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. Inc. executive to keep generic forms of the muscle relaxant Skelaxin off the market.
Expert Analysis
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Reconsidering Claim Construction Standard Of Review
In Lighting Ballast Control LLC v. Philips Electronics North America, the Federal Circuit will be reconsidering en banc the strictness by which Federal Circuit and other appellate judges evaluate rulings by district court judges. Any change in the standard of review for district court claim construction rulings could have a significant impact on U.S. patent litigation, says Rodger Sadler, patent litigation counsel at Canon Inc.
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A New Weapon In Generic Drug Companies' Arsenal
The recent Vigamox and Lexiva inter partes review proceedings offer a first glimpse of what promises to be a new front in the pharmaceutical patent wars between brand-name and generic pharmaceutical companies, say attorneys with Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP.
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AIA's 1st Trial Was More Of A Hearing — No Surprise There
It has been observed that the first "oral hearing" before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board was more akin to an oral argument than a typical court trial. That simple observation comes as no surprise, but it is one of many examples of the misnomers in the AIA “trial” proceedings, says Scott McBride of McAndrews Held & Malloy Ltd.
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3 Ways To Leverage Internet Access During Trial
A survey of local rules for courthouses with available Wi-Fi has shown that no courts expressly prohibit the use of Internet by lawyers to gain information about the venire. Interestingly, at least one appellate court has held that it was error not to allow counsel to access the Internet during jury selection, say Derek Sarafa and William O'Neil of Winston & Strawn LLP.
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DOJ Faces Challenges In Prosecuting Foreign Corporations
Courts are only now beginning to struggle with the intersection of transnational corporate crime in the Internet age and Rule 4 Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which is woefully outdated. Two recent conflicting trade secrets decisions highlight this disconnect, say Stephen Byers and Jason Lynch of Crowell & Moring LLP.
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Divided Infringement Of System Claims After Centillion
After the Federal Circuit's Centillion Data Systems LLC v. Qwest Communications International Inc. decision and the district court decisions that have followed, it is clear that joint or divided infringement can be a powerful defense to patent infringement regardless of whether the asserted claims are method claims or system claims, say Jennifer Bennett and Mark Nelson of Dentons.
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CBP's Expanded Role In Enforcing ITC Exclusion Orders
The recent decision of the U.S. Court of International Trade in Corning Gilbert Inc. v. United States could mark a watershed for the enforcement of exclusion orders issued by the U.S. International Trade Commission under Section 337. It could significantly expand the roles of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the CIT in the enforcement of ITC exclusion orders, say attorneys with King & Spalding LLP.
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Thoughts On Oral Arguments In Gene Patent Case
On April 15, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the Myriad Genetics Inc. case, which addresses whether human genes are patentable. The justices struggled with the problem of balancing concerns relating to scientific freedom to experiment with natural products, the need for economic incentives to stimulate investment, and the widespread availability of medical care, say Deborah Somerville and Joseph Coppola of Kenyon & Kenyon LLP.
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Another Look At The Doctrine Of Equivalents
Recent Federal Circuit opinions upholding infringement findings under the doctrine of equivalents and vacating findings of noninfringement have prompted renewed questions of whether the doctrine may be coming back to life. An analysis of recent district court cases applying the doctrine suggests that reports of the doctrine’s revival are at least somewhat exaggerated, say Elizabeth Brann and Bob Chen of Paul Hastings LLP.
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How Bowman V. Monsanto May Wreak Havoc On Biotechnology
While it seems likely that the Federal Circuit’s decision in Bowman v. Monsanto Company may ultimately be upheld, the U.S. Supreme Court’s written opinion still holds the potential to enormously impact the current licensing practices of the biotechnology industry and any life sciences company that makes, sells, uses or purchases self-replicating biotechnology, say attorneys with Choate Hall & Stewart LLP.