Intellectual Property

  • October 17, 2025

    USPTO Head To Take Over Patent Review Institution Decisions

    John Squires, director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said Friday that he will now make all decisions on whether to institute America Invents Act reviews of patents, including on the merits of the challenge and discretionary issues, in a major overhaul of the review system.

  • October 17, 2025

    Artists Ask To Certify Classes In Google AI Copyright Suit

    A group of artists and writers who claim their copyrights were infringed when Google used their works to train its artificial intelligence model asked a California federal judge to grant them class certification.

  • October 17, 2025

    Songwriters Extend Copyright Fight To Suno AI

    A group of independent songwriters has filed suit in Illinois federal court against music generator Suno AI, claiming the songwriters' copyrighted works were used to train its models after filing similar claims against AI music company Udio a day earlier.

  • October 17, 2025

    MGA Fights New Trial On Damages In Doll TM Case

    Toy maker MGA Entertainment wants to appeal a California federal judge's decision calling for a new jury trial to consider whether to award punitive damages to hip-hop moguls Clifford "T.I." Harris and Tameka "Tiny" Harris over a line of dolls called L.O.L. Surprise O.M.G.

  • October 17, 2025

    Mintz Says Ex-Client Owes $2M 'Success Fee' For Patent Work

    Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC says a former client is refusing to pay a nearly $2.2 million "success fee" for the firm's work on multiple patent infringement matters that generated millions of dollars in recoveries, according to a complaint filed on Friday in Massachusetts federal court.

  • October 17, 2025

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

    This past week in London has seen Johnson & Johnson hit with a £1 billion ($1.34 billion) claim for allegedly selling contaminated baby powder, Carter-Ruck bring a claim against the Solicitors Regulation Authority, and Hewlett Packard file a probate claim against the estate of Mike Lynch.

  • October 16, 2025

    Proposed New Rules Would Cut Off Many PTAB Challenges

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed rules Thursday that would prevent inter partes reviews challenging patents from being instituted in many scenarios, and attorneys said implementing the plan would significantly reduce challenges and make them far less appealing to accused infringers.

  • October 16, 2025

    Jack Nicklaus Tells Jury He Wanted 'Freedom' Back After Pact

    Golf legend Jack Nicklaus told a Florida jury on Thursday that he filed for an arbitration in Miami to reclaim his intellectual property after parting ways with the company named after him, but added the chairman "did not want to give me my freedom." 

  • October 16, 2025

    7th Circ. Affirms French Montana's Win In Copyright Case

    The Seventh Circuit on Thursday backed French Montana's win in a copyright case brought by a musician who alleged the rapper sampled his instrumental song to make the hit single "Ain't Worried About Nothin'," saying there wasn't evidence to show Montana duplicated the work "as opposed to merely imitating it."

  • October 16, 2025

    Songwriters Claim Udio AI Was Trained On Copyrighted Music

    A group of songwriters is suing artificial intelligence company Udio AI, claiming its music-generating AI models were trained using copyrighted music scraped from the internet.

  • October 16, 2025

    Amazon Claims Calif. Lawyer, Chinese Firms Pulled IP Scheme

    Amazon is suing a California lawyer and four Chinese companies, among others, over an alleged scheme to fraudulently register thousands of trademarks with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and then wrongfully report infringement by other Amazon sellers.

  • October 16, 2025

    USPTO Says Fed. Circ. Should Skip 'Settled Expectations' Case

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office wants the Federal Circuit to reject a challenge to the way the agency has denied review of patents based on the owner's "settled expectations," saying Thursday it has full discretion on whether to review patents or not.

  • October 16, 2025

    Authors Say Salesforce Used Pirated Books To Train Its AI

    A pair of authors accused Salesforce of improperly training its artificial intelligence models on copyrighted works, telling a California federal court Wednesday that the cloud-based software company used their pirated books in "its acts of massive copyright infringement."

  • October 16, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Won't Revive Gesture Patent After Reexam

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday backed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that tossed claims in a motion sensor patent owned by Gesture Technology Partners LLC, the latest development in a larger patent dispute involving the company.

  • October 16, 2025

    Research Exec Faked Data, Worked For Rivals, $10M Suit Says

    A Massachusetts marketing and political research firm that has done work for Snapchat, Paramount and the government says its co-founder and former chief analytics officer falsified data and used its resources on projects for competitors, and is seeking at least $10 million in damages in a recently launched lawsuit.

  • October 16, 2025

    Jazz Denied Preferred Drug Royalty Rate, But Still Gets Boost

    A Delaware federal judge has agreed to increase the royalty rate a specialty drugmaker has to pay drug manufacturer Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc. for using a patented process behind a newer narcolepsy drug, but by less than what Jazz asked for.

  • October 16, 2025

    'GirlDad' TM Fight Expands To 'GirlMom,' 'BoyDad,' 'BoyMom'

    A trademark battle over the "GirlDad" trademark expanded to the marks "GirlMom," "BoyDad" and "BoyMom" as an apparel company accused a rival of infringing all four in Ohio federal court.

  • October 16, 2025

    Netflix Keeps Win In Documentary IP Suit From Atty's Film Co.

    A New Jersey federal judge this week declined to reconsider his order throwing out an attorney's copyright infringement suit against Netflix Inc. over his documentary about sexual abuse in the Boy Scouts of America.

  • October 16, 2025

    Nexus Wants New Trial After Exela Cleared In $89M IP Case

    Nexus Pharmaceuticals has asked a Delaware federal judge to order a new trial on its patent infringement claims against rival Exela Pharma Sciences, saying a jury that cleared Exela of those claims in September did so "against the great weight of evidence."

  • October 16, 2025

    Music Giants Say Cox Case Isn't About Grandma Losing Wi-Fi

    Leading music publishers have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm that internet service providers can be contributorily liable for their customers' piracy if they fail to take action, saying a jury verdict against Cox Communications that led to a $1 billion award showed that the company "made a deliberate and egregious decision" to put profits first.

  • October 15, 2025

    Jack Smith And Other Ex-DOJ Staffers Slam Trump Purge

    Former U.S. Department of Justice employees, including former special counsel Jack Smith, spoke out Wednesday in support of colleagues fired or forced to resign by the Trump administration, issuing a warning about the "existential crisis" born from efforts to use the agency to punish the president's political opponents.

  • October 15, 2025

    Monster Energy Gets Another Shot At Camping Gear IP Claims

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday found that a lower court erred in throwing out Monster Energy's trademark infringement suit against the manufacturers of 4Monster camping gear, finding that a reasonable juror could find that the marks are confusingly similar.

  • October 15, 2025

    Top Del. Judge Details Views On Willful Infringement Issues

    A lawsuit cannot provide an accused infringer with the notice needed for a patent owner to allege indirect and willful infringement, and enhanced infringement demands aren't subject to dismissal motions, Delaware's top judge has ruled.

  • October 15, 2025

    Patent Examiners Facing Productivity Push, Higher Standards

    Officials at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday detailed changes to patent examiners' performance requirements, outlining increased productivity goals, heightened supervisory scrutiny, and more strenuous evaluation standards for the examiner corps.

  • October 15, 2025

    Justices Told PTAB Has No Business Reviewing Expired IP

    Gesture Technology Partners LLC urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to consider whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board can review expired patents, pushing back on arguments from the government and several tech giants that the justices have already ruled it can't.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Learning From Failure

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    While law school often focuses on the importance of precision, correctness and perfection, mistakes are inevitable in real-world practice — but failure is not the opposite of progress, and real talent comes from the ability to recover, rethink and reshape, says Brooke Pauley at Tucker Ellis.

  • Eye Drop Ruling Clarifies Importance Of Patent Phrasing

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    The Federal Circuit's recent ruling in Eye Therapies v. Slayback, rejecting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's interpretation of "consisting essentially of," highlights the importance of using clear and consistent terms throughout a patent's filing history to shield it against future challenges, says Liliana Di Nola-Baron at Panitch Schwarze.

  • How Courts Are Addressing The Use Of AI In Discovery

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    In recent months, several courts have issued opinions on handling discovery issues involving artificial intelligence, which collectively offer useful insights on integrating AI into discovery and protecting work product in connection with AI prompts and outputs, says Philip Favro at Favro Law.

  • AI Infrastructure Growth Brings Unique IP Considerations

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    The explosive rise of artificial intelligence has triggered an equally dramatic transformation in the supporting infrastructure required to meet growing AI demand, and the technology used in these data centers has its own intellectual property considerations to navigate, says Vincent Allen at Carstens Allen.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From ATF Director To BigLaw

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    As a two-time boomerang partner, returning to BigLaw after stints as a U.S. attorney and the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, people ask me how I know when to move on, but there’s no single answer — just clearly set your priorities, says Steven Dettelbach at BakerHostetler.

  • IPR Decisions Clarify Stewart's 'Settled Expectations' Factor

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    Recent discretionary denial decisions from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office acting Director Coke Morgan Stewart have begun to illuminate the contours of her "settled expectations" doctrine, informing when it might be worth petitioning for inter partes review if the patent at issue has been in force for a few years, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • How To Increase 3rd-Party Preissuance Patent Submissions

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    Attorneys Marian Underweiser and Marc Ehrlich, who helped draft the America Invents Act, discuss changes that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could potentially implement to facilitate its hopes for increased participation in front-end patent challenges.

  • Anthropic Ruling Creates Fair Use Framework For AI Training

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    A California federal court’s recent ruling that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its large language model qualified as fair use provides important guidance for both artificial intelligence developers and copyright holders because it distinguishes between transformative uses and unauthorized uses involving pirated or format-shifted works, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • Assessing Impact Of USPTO's New Patent Policies

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    Recent data shows how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new patent policies are affecting America Invents Act trial institution rates, including spurring an uptick in discretionary denials, say attorneys at Armond Wilson.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • Fed. Circ. Ingenico Ruling Pivotal For IPR Estoppel Landscape

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Ingenico v. Ioengine brings long-awaited clarity to the scope of inter partes review estoppel, confirming that a patent challenger is not precluded from relying on the same or substantially similar prior art in both IPR and district court proceedings, so long as it is used to support a different invalidity theory, say attorneys at Irwin IP.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • How Patent Attys Can Carefully Integrate LLMs Into Workflows

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    With artificial intelligence-powered tools now being developed specifically for the intellectual property domain, patent practitioners should monitor evolving considerations to ensure that their capabilities are enhanced — rather than diminished — by these resources, say attorneys at McDonnell Boehnen.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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