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Intellectual Property
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Featured
My So-Called Retirement: Some IP Lawyers Just Can't Quit
When patent partner Terry Rea set out to retire, the onetime acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had her eyes on the independence that retirement promises — flexible hours, fewer deadlines and less stress over having lots of people counting on you.
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May 28, 2025
Flamin' Hot Cheetos Defamation Suit Snuffed Out, For Now
A California federal judge Wednesday granted Frito-Lay Inc.'s motion to strike a former employee's discrimination and defamation suit claiming he invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos and had his livelihood destroyed when the company disavowed his story, finding he's unlikely to win his claims, but giving him another shot at amendment.
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May 28, 2025
MGA Seeks 4th Trial In $71M Doll Dispute With Rapper T.I.
MGA Entertainment urged a California federal judge Tuesday to reverse a jury's $71.4 million award to rapper Clifford "T.I." Harris and others for MGA infringing the trade dress and publicity rights of the OMG Girlz pop group, saying the court's finding of no willful infringement should nullify the verdict.
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May 28, 2025
Indian Pharma Co. Hit With Patent Suit Over Fennec's Cancer Drug
An Indian multinational pharmaceutical company is infringing a patent for a drug to treat hearing loss in pediatric cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, a North Carolina biotechnology company claimed in a lawsuit filed in New Jersey federal court.
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May 28, 2025
Disney Cut Loose From Singing Turtle IP Case
A California federal judge has thrown out a copyright and trademark suit by a man who claimed The Walt Disney Co. copied his singing turtle character, finding Disney had already created its singing turtle 'Olu Mel by the time the man was depicting his turtle character as playing a ukulele.
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May 28, 2025
Fed. Circ. Restores Floor Tiling Patent Case
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday revived a lawsuit accusing a pair of flooring companies of infringing patents related to devices used in tile leveling and spacing, taking issue with how a lower court interpreted key claim terms.
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May 28, 2025
Insurer Fights Coverage Of Patent Suit Against Dental Co.
An insurer told a Michigan federal court it is not obligated to defend or indemnify a dental products company in an underlying patent infringement case, arguing that the claims fall outside the scope of the commercial liability coverage.
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May 28, 2025
Harvard To Give Slave Photos To Museum, Ending Legal Battle
Harvard University on Wednesday settled a suit over the ownership of photographs of enslaved people taken for a racist 1850 study, agreeing to transfer the images to a museum and to pay an undisclosed sum to a woman who says she is a descendant of the subjects.
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May 28, 2025
ID Verification Platform Fights Bid To DQ MoFo In IP Dispute
Identity verification platform Jumio urged a California federal court to reject a bid to disqualify Morrison & Foerster LLP as its counsel in patent litigation over facial recognition technology, saying the law firm had not been co-counsel with its previously disqualified firm, Perkins Coie LLP.
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May 28, 2025
NC BBQ Joint Roasts Flagship Over Trademark Use
A chain of fast casual barbecue restaurants in North Carolina has accused the original location of misusing the brand's trademarks to sell sauces and rubs beyond the bounds of its alleged licensing agreement, according to a newly designated state Business Court complaint.
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May 28, 2025
Nielsen Rival Wants To Ditch Viewing Data Patent Case
A rival of Nielsen Co. LLC has asked a Delaware federal judge to toss a suit by Nielsen that claims infringement of a patent covering a way to measure audience viewership outside the home through mobile phone data, arguing that the subject matter is patent-ineligible.
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May 28, 2025
Judge Won't Stop Ex-Copyright Office Director's Firing
A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday declined to stop the Trump administration from ousting the former director of the U.S. Copyright Office, saying the recently fired official had not shown she would be irreparably harmed absent the court's intervention.
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May 28, 2025
Mielle Organics Accuses Vendors Of Selling Fake Products
Hair and beauty brand Mielle Organics has hit a group of cosmetics sellers with copyright infringement claims in a London court, alleging that the vendors have sold knock-off products and used bogus documents to claim they were genuine.
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May 27, 2025
Anthropic Declaration Partly Stricken Over AI Hallucination
A California federal magistrate judge has partially stricken an expert report filed by Anthropic in copyright infringement litigation that cited a nonexistent study — an error created by the artificial intelligence company's own Claude AI tool — calling the issue "serious," but "not quite so grave as it first appeared."
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May 27, 2025
Fortress' Power On VLSI Board Takes Spotlight At Trial's Start
Fortress Investment Group's head of intellectual property told a Texas federal jury Tuesday that his company's overlap with investment funds that run VLSI Technology and Finjan Holdings highlights its dedication to overseeing investors' best interests, not that Fortress controls the funds.
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May 27, 2025
'Gone In 60 Seconds' IP Appeal 'Stalls At Starting Line'
A Ninth Circuit panel held Tuesday that the customized Ford Mustangs called "Eleanor" that were featured in four films — most recently in the 2000 Nicolas Cage film "Gone in 60 Seconds" — is not a copyrightable character.
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May 27, 2025
CardiacSense Gives Patent Suit Against Garmin Another Go
Wearable tech company CardiacSense Ltd. dove deeper into a fitness tracker patent it accuses Garmin International Inc. of infringing after a Michigan federal judge last month dismissed its lawsuit but allowed for an amended complaint given the suit's "technical issues."
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May 27, 2025
Fed. Circ. Backs Engineering Co. Win In Patent Fight
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday refused to revive allegations that a Texas-based engineering services company infringed a half dozen patents related to oil and gas industry pipeline integrity testing, finding a lower court judge's interpretation of key patent terms was correct.
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May 27, 2025
AMS Nets $52M As 17-Year-Old Trade Secrets Case Wraps
Light sensor maker AMS has been granted a $51.7 million judgment against a rival in Texas federal court, ending a 17-year-old trade secrets case that has gone through multiple appeals and two trials.
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May 27, 2025
Atty Avoids Sanctions After Adding AI Hallucinations To Brief
A California attorney who represented a software company in a trade secret dispute will not be sanctioned for filing a brief that included two ChatGPT-hallucinated case citations under circumstances so unusual they "couldn't have been made up," an Illinois federal judge said Tuesday.
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May 27, 2025
Lawmakers Float Fast Patent Program For AI, Semiconductors
Lawmakers in the U.S. Senate and House have introduced legislation that would require the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to create an experimental program to prioritize patent applications for technologies like artificial intelligence and semiconductors.
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May 27, 2025
Motorola Loses Fights In PTAB Patent Challenges
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's acting leader has decided not to rethink her decision for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board not to review Motorola's challenges to a series of Stellar Inc. patents on glasses equipped with cameras, while also throwing out challenges to other patents.
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May 27, 2025
Mobile App Infringement Suit Against Bridgestone Dropped
A New Jersey company and tire maker Bridgestone Americas Inc. on Tuesday jointly asked a Texas federal judge to dismiss a case in which Bridgestone was accused of using patented mobile device communication technology in its mobile app.
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May 27, 2025
Fed. Circ. Faults PTAB Again For Upholding Lighting Patent
The Federal Circuit on Tuesday faulted for the second time a Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruling rejecting challenges to a decorative lighting patent, saying the board wrongly concluded there wasn't a motivation to combine prior art in order to reduce the cost of copper in the lighting system.
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May 27, 2025
Card Game Maker Sues Competitor Over Alleged Knockoff
The maker of the Never Have I Ever card game has sued a rival game company in California federal court, claiming the board game Tipsy Land is a knockoff seeking to capitalize on the success of its product.
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May 27, 2025
Ford Loses UK 'Cobra' Trademarks In AC Cars Dispute
Ford Motor Co. has lost four U.K. trademarks for the "Cobra" brand after a successful challenge by British automaker AC Cars, due to a lack of evidence that Ford or its licensees actively used "Cobra" as a brand for cars or toys in the U.K.
Editor's Picks
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Aggressive USPTO Policy Push Suggests 'It's Lutnick's Show'
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart's three months in charge have featured an unprecedented level of policymaking for an interim leader, suggesting that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has a vision for the agency and he's not waiting for the U.S. Senate to confirm a new director to pursue it.
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PTAB Denial Rules Shaken Up By Fintiv Memo Withdrawal
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday rescinded a 2022 memo regarding when the Patent Trial and Appeal Board may deny review of patents based on parallel litigation, which attorneys said gives the board broader discretion on such denials and could lead to more of them.
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4 Takeaways From 1st Opinion On AI Training And Fair Use
A Delaware federal court's rejection of a company's fair use defense for using copyrighted material to train an artificial intelligence program is a key moment in the clash between copyright law and AI development, as both intellectual property owners and tech companies seek favorable judicial guidance.
Expert Analysis
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Fed. Circ. In April: Introducing New Evidence During IPR
The Federal Circuit's decision in Sage Products v. Stewart last month upheld the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision to allow a petitioner to rely on case-dispositive evidence beyond prior art references, affording petitioners in inter partes review proceedings greater latitude in the timing of evidence presentation, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.
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Oft-Forgotten Evidence Rule Can Be Powerful Trial Tool
Rule 608 may be one of the most overlooked provisions in the Federal Rules of Evidence, but as a transformative tool that allows attorneys to attack a witness's character for truthfulness through opinion or reputation testimony, its potential to reshape a case cannot be overstated, says Marian Braccia at Temple University Beasley School of Law.
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And Now A Word From The Panel: A Rare MDL Petition Off-Day
In an unusual occurrence in the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's history, there are zero new MDL petitions scheduled for Thursday's hearing session, but the panel will be busy considering a host of motions regarding whether to transfer cases to eight existing MDL proceedings, says Alan Rothman at Sidley.
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DOJ Export Declination Highlights Self-Reporting Benefits
The U.S. Department of Justice's recent decision not to prosecute a NASA contractor, despite a former employee pleading guilty to facilitating unlicensed exports, underscores the advantages available to companies that self-report sanctions violations, cooperate with investigations and implement timely remediation, say attorneys at Cleary.
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A Cautionary Fed. Circ. Tale On Design Patents
The Federal Circuit's decision last month in Floyd highlights a risk in design patent prosecution — attempting to claim priority to a utility application, says John Hemmer at Morgan Lewis.
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Series
Power To The Paralegals: An Untapped Source For Biz Roles
Law firms looking to recruit legal business talent should consider turning to paralegals, who practice several key skills every day that prepare them to thrive in marketing and client development roles, says Vanessa Torres at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Google Case Amicus Briefs Reveal Patent Damage Fault Lines
The 21 amicus briefs filed before the en banc rehearing of EcoFactor v. Google offer opposing viewpoints on important patent damages issues that extend beyond the specific question the Federal Circuit eventually ruled on, helping practitioners anticipate and address likely objections to future damages opinions, say attorneys at Stout.
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USPTO Decision Provides Clearer Path To Ex Parte Reexam
In light of an uptick in ex parte reexamination filings as an alternative way to challenge patent validity, both petitioners and patent owners may benefit from understanding a new framework for determining when estoppel applies, explained by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in a recent petition decision, says Chris Coulson at Skadden.
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Series
Playing Poker Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Poker is a master class in psychology, risk management and strategic thinking, and I’m a better attorney because it has taught me to read my opponents, adapt when I’m dealt the unexpected and stay patient until I'm ready to reveal my hand, says Casey Kingsley at McCreadyLaw.
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Opinion
Counterfeiting Cases Could Alter TM Law, Hurt Resale Market
Trademark infringement litigation brought by Nike and Chanel against resale platforms could reshape the first-sale doctrine, with the future of the $49 billion luxury fashion resale market at stake, says attorney Charles Meyer.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Becoming A Firmwide MVP
Though lawyers don't have a neat metric like baseball players for measuring the value they contribute to their organizations, the sooner new attorneys learn skills frequently skipped in law school — like networking, marketing, client development and case evaluation — the more valuable, and less replaceable, they will be, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.
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9th Circ. Ruling Clarifies Derivative Suit Representation Test
The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling in Bigfoot Ventures v. Knighton clarifies the test used to assess the adequacy of a plaintiff's representation in a shareholder derivative action, and will likely prove useful to litigants by ensuring that courts can fully examine all relevant circumstances, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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Patenting AI And Machine Learning In The Wake Of Recentive
Though the Federal Circuit's recent decision in Recentive Analytics v. Fox Corp. initially appears to doom patents related to artificial intelligence and machine learning, a closer look shows that strategies for successfully drafting and prosecuting such patents offer hope despite increased pushback from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, say attorneys at Banner Witcoff.
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Trade Secrets Would Likely See Court Protection From GenAI
The advent of generative artificial intelligence has given rise to debate about how this technology will affect intellectual property rights and trade secret protections in particular, but courts to date have protected owners when technological advances have facilitated new means for trade secret theft, say attorneys at Kilpatrick Townsend.
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5 Tribunals' Rules To Help Patent Litigators Avoid AI Disasters
Tech-savvy patent litigators are uniquely poised to stay current on the latest developments in artificial intelligence, such that courts may have even higher expectations for their compliance with AI rules, including the standing orders of several patent-heavy fora, say attorneys at Finnegan.