Intellectual Property

  • May 23, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Upends Inventors' Interference Win Over Time-Bar

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly chose inventors tied to Cook Medical, rather than ones tied to Medtronic, when determining who should prevail in an interference proceeding over catheters, the Federal Circuit held Thursday.

  • May 23, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Says Winery Minority Owner Can't Try To Cancel TM

    The Federal Circuit has affirmed a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board decision that a family trust that is a minority owner of Paul Hobbs Winery, which owns the trademark registration on the name of winemaker Paul Hobbs, does not have the right to seek cancellation of registrations on certain trademarks.

  • May 23, 2024

    Man Behind NH Primary Deepfake Faces Charges, FCC Fines

    The Democratic consultant accused of making robocalls with a cloned voice of President Joe Biden discouraging voters from taking part in the New Hampshire primary faces a state indictment on 13 felony voter suppression charges and $6 million in potential federal fines.

  • May 23, 2024

    Legal Marketer, Ark. Firm Agree To End Trade Secrets Suit

    A legal marketing business has agreed to dismiss a Georgia federal lawsuit accusing an Arkansas law firm and others of stealing and profiting off its trade secrets, including a database of client leads for mass torts over talcum powder and heartburn medication.

  • May 23, 2024

    Ex-Shook Hardy IP Team Joins Boies Schiller In DC

    Boies Schiller Flexner has beefed up its intellectual property services in Washington, D.C., with the addition of a trio of attorneys who previously practiced together for nearly a decade at Shook Hardy & Bacon, the firm announced Thursday.

  • May 22, 2024

    Pryor Cashman Atty Accused Of 'Brazen' Hose Patent Fraud

    An attorney for Pryor Cashman LLP and his client were accused Wednesday in Florida federal court of engaging in a "brazen" scheme to usurp a hose company's rights to a patent portfolio while also defrauding the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  • May 22, 2024

    Salesforce Gets Texas Judge To Move Patent Suit To California

    For at least the second time in a week, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, has explained why he has shipped a patent lawsuit from his court to the Northern District of California — this time in a case brought by a bankrupt startup against one of Salesforce's brands.

  • May 22, 2024

    Inventor To Take $102M IP Malpractice Row To Ga. High Court

    A neurosurgeon pursuing a nearly $102 million legal malpractice case against FisherBroyles LLP and a legal services contractor over a missed patent filing deadline said Wednesday that he is planning to take the dispute to the highest court in the Peach State.

  • May 22, 2024

    Record Co. Worker Can't Appeal Before Nirvana Logo Trial

    A former record company employee who claims he created Nirvana's "smiley face" logo can't immediately appeal a ruling denying his ownership claim or delay trial in the band's copyright suit against designer Marc Jacobs International LLC over the logo, a California federal judge has ruled.

  • May 22, 2024

    NFL Escapes Sanders Statue Spat As Getty Eyes Arbitration

    The NFL has escaped a New York federal lawsuit filed by a professional photographer who claims his copyrighted photo was unlawfully used to create a statue of legendary running back Barry Sanders, while Getty Images Inc. hopes to settle through arbitration.

  • May 22, 2024

    PTAB Finds Inergy's Chip Patent Challenges 'Compelling'

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has decided to review Force Mos Technology chip patents, saying it won't rely on a 2020 precedent to discretionarily deny challenges by Inergy Technology Inc. in light of a looming district court trial because the petitions raise "compelling evidence of unpatentability."

  • May 22, 2024

    Justices' CFPB Alliance May Save SEC Courts, Not Chevron

    A four-justice concurrence to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's unique funding scheme last week carries implications for other cases pending before the court that challenge the so-called administrative state, or the permanent cadre of regulatory agencies and career government enforcers who hold sway over vast swaths of American economic life.

  • May 22, 2024

    Justices Urged To Undo 'Nonsensical' Double Patenting Ruling

    Cellect LLC asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the "nonsensical" invalidation of its patents through so-called obviousness-type double patenting, alleging the Federal Circuit "punished" it for delays in the patent prosecution process that were outside of its control.

  • May 22, 2024

    Insurance Co. Says Ex-Underwriter 'Lured' Away Colleagues

    An insurance brokerage and its affiliate have accused a former high-ranking company official of decamping for a competitor and encouraging colleagues to follow suit, according to a complaint designated Wednesday to North Carolina Business Court.

  • May 22, 2024

    Carmen Electra, Other Models' Likeness Suit Moves Forward

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has rejected a bid from three Philadelphia-area strip clubs to throw out a suit claiming they wrongly used the likeness of models including Carmen Electra, saying the models' claims were plausible.

  • May 22, 2024

    Boeing Can't Use Belated Patent Defense In Startup's IP Trial

    A Washington federal judge has rejected The Boeing Co.'s last-minute bid to tell a jury that its patents preempt claims it misappropriated an electric jet startup's intellectual property, saying it would be unfair to allow previously unpled affirmative defenses now that the trial is underway.

  • May 22, 2024

    Teva, Bristol-Myers Cite Bystolic Against Cancer Drug Case

    Celgene and parent Bristol-Myers Squibb pointed a New Jersey federal judge to the dismissal, recently upheld by the Second Circuit, of an antitrust suit over delayed generic competition to AbbVie's hypertension treatment Bystolic to argue the same logic applies to their bid to duck antitrust claims over cancer therapies.

  • May 22, 2024

    Spencer Fane Lures In Big-Name 'Misfits' For Patent Group

    Spencer Fane LLP has spent the past two years building up what it hopes to be a top-tier intellectual property group, pulling together a "band of misfits" from firms like Fish & Richardson PC and McKool Smith, according to the group's co-leader.

  • May 22, 2024

    Data Storage Co. Says Seagate Stole Info For New Product

    New Jersey data storage company Access Optical Networks Inc. has sued competitor Seagate Technology LLC in California state court, alleging its rival stole trade secrets to advance development of a new storage product — all while pretending to want to develop a business relationship with AON.

  • May 22, 2024

    Dickinson Adds Ex-Sheppard Mullin IP Pro In Silicon Valley

    Dickinson Wright PLLC said Wednesday that it has added a former Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP partner as the newest member of its Silicon Valley office.

  • May 22, 2024

    Womble Bond Adds IP Litigator In LA

    A patent attorney specializing in software and technology innovations has moved his practice to Womble Bond Dickinson LLP's Los Angeles office after more than 12 years with Ladas & Parry LLP.

  • May 22, 2024

    Honeywell Rival Sues To Ward Off 'Meritless' Litigation Threat

    A Japanese manufacturer is suing to put a stop to what it described as an "aggressive threat of litigation" by Honeywell International Inc. in the conglomerate's long-running crusade to protect its patents for barcode scanners, calling Honeywell's latest claim "unwarranted and meritless."

  • May 21, 2024

    Scarlett Johansson Taps Bird Marella Atty For OpenAI Fight

    A prominent entertainment attorney who represented Scarlett Johansson in litigation over the release of "Black Widow" is teaming up with the actress again, this time to battle OpenAI and its new chatbot, which Johansson claims sounds "eerily" like her, though she says she never granted the artificial intelligence company permission.

  • May 21, 2024

    Questions Abound As Fed. Circ. Scraps Design Patent Tests

    By discarding established tests for proving that design patents are invalid as obvious Tuesday, the full Federal Circuit has opened the door for new invalidity arguments and created uncertainty by not providing much guidance on how courts should evaluate them, attorneys said.

  • May 21, 2024

    Texas Panel Says Mallory Ruling Has No Home There

    A Texas appellate court has upheld a ruling preventing a Dallas car repair services company from litigating a trade secrets case there against a Michigan rival over allegedly hiring away a former executive, holding that the U.S. Supreme Court's Mallory decision last year doesn't do much in Texas.

Expert Analysis

  • Businesses Should Take Their AI Contracts Off Auto-Renew

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    When subscribing to artificial intelligence tools — or to any technology in a highly competitive and legally thorny market — companies should push back on automatic renewal contract clauses for reasons including litigation and regulatory risk, and competition, says Chris Wlach at Huge Inc.

  • Del. IP Ruling May Mark Limitation-By-Limitation Analysis Shift

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    A Delaware federal court's recent ruling in Lindis Biotech v. Amgen, which involved complex technology where the complaint contained neither facts nor a specific allegation directed to a claim limitation, might spark a shift away from requiring a limitation-by-limitation analysis, say Ted Mathias and Ian Swan at Axinn.

  • Trump Hush Money Case Offers Master Class In Trial Strategy

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    The New York criminal hush money trial of former President Donald Trump typifies some of the greatest challenges that lawyers face in crafting persuasive presentations, providing lessons on how to handle bad facts, craft a simple story that withstands attack, and cross-examine with that story in mind, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Cell Therapy Cos. Must Beware Limits Of Patent Safe Harbors

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    Though developers of gene and cell therapy products commonly assume that a legal safe harbor protects them from patent infringement suits, recent case law shows that not all preapproval uses of patented technology are necessarily protected, say Natasha Daughtrey and Joshua Weinger at Goodwin.

  • ITC Ruling Has Serious IP Implications For Foreign Imports

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    While a recent U.S. International Trade Commission decision is a win for trade secret owners who can show injury to a U.S. domestic industry, the decision also means that companies operating in foreign jurisdictions will be subject to the requirements of U.S. trade secret law, say Paul Ainsworth and Cristen Corry at Sterne Kessler.

  • What The Justices' Copyright Damages Ruling Didn't Address

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Warner Chappell v. Nealy clarified when a copyright owner may recover damages in jurisdictions that apply the so-called discovery rule, it did not settle the overriding question of whether the Copyright Act even permits applying the rule, say Ivy Estoesta and William Milliken at Sterne Kessler.

  • Series

    Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • How Clinical Trials Affect Patentability In US And Europe

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    A comparison of recent U.S. and European patent decisions — concerning the effect of disclosures in clinical trials on the patentability of products — offers guidance on good practice for companies dealing with public use issues and prior art documents in these commercially important jurisdictions, say lawyers at Finnegan.

  • TTAB Ruling Raises Foreign-Language Mark Questions

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    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's recent decision to cancel the Veuve Olivier registration due to its similarity to Veuve Clicquot brings new focus to the treatment of foreign terms and the doctrine of foreign equivalents, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • A Vision For Economic Clerkships In The Legal System

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    As courts handle increasingly complex damages analyses involving vast amounts of data, an economic clerkship program — integrating early-career economists into the judicial system — could improve legal outcomes and provide essential training to clerks, say Mona Birjandi at Data for Decisions and Matt Farber at Secretariat.

  • Measuring Early Impact Of Rule 702 Changes On Patent Cases

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    Since Federal Rule of Evidence 702 was amended to clarify the standards for admitting expert witness testimony five months ago, emerging trends in patent cases suggest that it may be easier to limit or exclude expert testimony, and hold key practice takeaways for attorneys, say Manuel Velez and Nan Zhang at Mayer Brown.

  • Protecting IP May Be Tricky Without Noncompetes

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    Contrary to the Federal Trade Commission's view, trade secret law cannot replace noncompetes' protection of proprietary information because intellectual property includes far more than just trade secrets, so businesses need to closely examine their IP protection options, say Aimee Fagan and Ching-Lee Fukuda at Sidley.

  • 8 Legal Issues Influencing Investors In The Creator Economy

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    The rapidly expanding digital creator economy — funding for which more than doubled in the U.S. in the first quarter — comes with its own set of unique legal issues investors must carefully consider before diving in, say Louis Lehot and Alan Pate at Foley & Lardner.

  • E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data

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    Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • How Copyright Office AI Standards Depart From Precedent

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    The U.S. Copyright Office's recent departure from decades of precedent for technology-assisted works, and express refusal to grant protection to artificial intelligence-assisted works, may change as the dust settles around ancillary copyright issues for AI currently pending in litigation, says Kristine Craig at Hanson Bridgett.

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