Intellectual Property

  • July 30, 2026

    CBP Outlines Rates, Classifications For Pharma Tariffs

    U.S. pharmaceutical giants aren't expected to face various tariff rates up to 100% on certain imported patented drugs and ingredients beginning Friday, but all importers must begin to classify their goods that will eventually be subject to the duties, according to customs guidance published Thursday.

  • July 30, 2026

    8th Circ. Agrees Chartreuse Color Can't Save Hose Maker's TM

    The Eighth Circuit on Thursday declined to revive a trademark that was asserted in a case brought by a water hose manufacturer against a competitor, agreeing with a federal judge who ruled the chartreuse color of the hoses was a functional feature and therefore invalidated the trademark.

  • July 30, 2026

    Squires Erases PTAB Ax Of Dermatology IP Upheld At ITC

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has thrown out the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's finding that Biofrontera Inc. had shown that all the challenged claims of a Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc. patent on a photodynamic dermatology device are invalid as obvious.

  • July 30, 2026

    Fed. Circ. OKs Samsung Win Over Patent Tied To $81M Award

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision invalidating a patent covering standard-essential 5G wireless network technology that Samsung was directed to pay $81 million for infringing, rejecting G+ Communications LLC's procedural and evidentiary arguments.

  • July 30, 2026

    WDTX Jury Awards $1.5M In Lighting Patent Retrial

    A Texas federal jury has awarded Chinese company Jiaxing Super Lighting almost $1.5 million in damages from rivals found to have infringed an LED tube lamp patent, a year after the Federal Circuit ordered a new trial.

  • July 30, 2026

    Impossible Foods Gets New TM Trial On Punitive Damages

    A California federal judge has ordered a new trial on punitive damages against Impossible Foods in a case over the "Impossible" trademark, ruling that the $1.75 million in punitive damages a jury awarded lifestyle brand Impossible X was against the clear weight of trial evidence.

  • July 30, 2026

    XAI Can't Unmask Jane Does In Deepfake Suit, Judge Says

    A California federal judge on Thursday declined to order a group of women suing xAI Corp. over Grok-generated deepfakes of them in sexual situations to reveal their identities and allowed them to proceed pseudonymously, finding their fears of threatened harm and retaliation from having to disclose their real names were reasonable.

  • July 30, 2026

    Squires Grants 6 Patent Petitions, Denies 4 In New Order

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has granted six requests for America Invents Act patent reviews and rejected four in his latest batch of decisions.

  • July 30, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Revives Schmeisser Gun Magazine Patent Suit

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday reversed a Wyoming judge's decision that found a firearm patent invalid as indefinite, reviving a preliminary injunction against a Bosnian gun part-maker that the lower court had dissolved.

  • July 29, 2026

    USC Says Caltech Can't Claim Ownership In Multiplexing IP

    The University of Southern California sued a former professor in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Tuesday claiming he and two other inventors impermissibly assigned their rights in multiplexing technology, allegedly developed using USC's resources, to Caltech, which claims sole ownership over it and sued other entities for patent infringement.

  • July 29, 2026

    1st Circ. Mulls Temu's Bid To Reinstate Suit Against IP Atty

    A First Circuit panel seemed torn Wednesday over whether to revive Chinese e-commerce giant Temu's lawsuit accusing an intellectual property attorney of lying to induce the company into settlements with two clients.

  • July 29, 2026

    Patent Co. IP Suit Against Amazon Should Go On, Judge Says

    A Texas federal judge has recommended denying Amazon's motion for a win on standing grounds in a lawsuit asserting software network patents, finding that even though the inventors of those patents worked for different companies when they conceived the intellectual property, Edge Networking Systems LLC could assert them.

  • July 29, 2026

    Forum Clause Dooms ITC Trade Secret Case Against BMW

    A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has made an initial finding to close a trade secret investigation into BMW's imports of infotainment screens targeted by a California technology company, citing an agreement between the parties saying their disputes had to be hashed out in Germany.

  • July 29, 2026

    Disney Says 'Avatar' Likeness Suit Came 16 Years Late

    Director James Cameron and Disney have asked a California federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by actor Q'orianka Kilcher alleging her face was used to craft the face of a main character in the 2009 film "Avatar," saying Kilcher had waited an unreasonable 16 years to make her claim.

  • July 29, 2026

    J&J Says Cancer Drug Study Sinks Bayer's False Ad Claims

    Johnson & Johnson told a New York federal court that a peer-reviewed scientific journal's publication of a study on the active ingredient in its prostate cancer drug must end Bayer's claims the pharmaceutical giant made false and misleading claims about the drug's efficacy.

  • July 29, 2026

    3rd Circ. Won't Undo Jury Award In Fudge Trade Secret Case

    The ex-wife of a chocolatier lost her challenge to a jury's finding that she misappropriated his secret recipe for "Chocolate Moonshine" fudge, after the majority of a split Third Circuit on Wednesday said there was enough evidence behind the jury's conclusions.

  • July 29, 2026

    Longtime USPTO Employee Tapped For Acting Deputy Leader

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has selected longtime employee Anne Mendez to serve as the acting second in command of the agency after Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart revealed this week that she's leaving for the private sector.

  • July 29, 2026

    'Vibe Coding' Pushes Cos. To Rethink Copyright Protection

    As artificial intelligence takes on more software development projects, businesses embracing “vibe coding” are adapting to uncertain copyright protection by documenting engineers’ contributions, keeping humans involved in high-value projects and leaning more heavily on trade secrets.

  • July 29, 2026

    Christian Song Doesn't Infringe Copyright, Ore. Judge Finds

    An Oregon federal judge has agreed with a jury's advisory verdict that a Christian music songwriter did not infringe the copyright on singer Vincent Ambrosetti's song "Emmanuel," noting Ambrosetti himself was not a reliable witness.

  • July 29, 2026

    Retailer Denies Copying Sensodyne With 'Sensio' TM

    A personal care retailer has hit back at the companies behind Sensodyne and Aquafresh, arguing that its "Sensio" and "Triple Protect" toothpastes are unlikely to confuse shoppers because their packaging and designs are markedly different.

  • July 29, 2026

    Lowe's Coverage Row, NASCAR Team Tiff: NC Midyear Report

    The North Carolina courts are teeing up for a busy second half of 2026, including readying for a multimillion-dollar insurance trial with Lowe's and speeding through discovery in a high-profile trade secrets dispute involving former NFL coach Joe Gibbs' championship NASCAR team.

  • July 28, 2026

    HR Giant Rippling Stole Startup's AI Trade Secrets, Suit Says

    Human resources services provider Rippling stole confidential information about Runlayer's artificial intelligence platform technology to develop its own competing product, the startup claims in litigation filed Tuesday in New York federal court.

  • July 28, 2026

    Split PTAB Upholds Fiber Optics Component Patent

    A divided panel of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has decided that Cambridge Industries USA Inc. failed to show that any challenged claims are invalid in an Applied Optoelectronics Inc. patent on technology used in fiber optic networks.

  • July 28, 2026

    Albright Preserves Verdict Clearing Roku On Streaming Patents

    A Texas federal judge on Tuesday said he wouldn't grant a new trial or a favorable judgment to a company that asserted two patents against Roku after a jury cleared the streaming device maker in 2024.

  • July 28, 2026

    Writer Must Post $150K Bond During Romantasy IP Appeal

    A New York federal judge on Tuesday said a writer has to put up a bond of $150,000 while she appeals the dismissal of her suit accusing a best-selling fiction author of stealing her romance-fantasy book drafts to create the popular "Crave" series.

Expert Analysis

  • Roundup

    The Most Talked-About Supreme Court Decisions Of 2026

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    This term, 11 U.S. Supreme Court decisions quickly became hot topics among Law360's guest writers.

  • Fighting The Evidentiary Risks Of Deepfakes In Court

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    Though courts and federal rules are only slowly developing frameworks for assessing digital evidence that could have been created or generated by artificial intelligence, litigators should understand what steps they'll likely need to take to successfully challenge potentially deepfaked exhibits — and fight questions about the authenticity of their own, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • Coordinating Life Sciences IP Strategies In The US And EU

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    As postgrant practice for life sciences patents is restructured in the U.S. and European Union simultaneously, patent owners will need to implement transatlantic coordination that treats international proceedings as components of a single intellectual property risk architecture, says Paul Calvo at Sterne Kessler.

  • Trademark Law As A Tool To Bolster NIL Rights Against AI

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    The meteoric rise of artificial intelligence-generated deepfakes is prompting high-profile celebrities to protect their name, image and likeness rights using federal trademark law — a powerful yet limited supplement to traditional NIL claims, says Susan Natland at BakerHostetler.

  • 'Tiger King' Funeral Clip Ruling Offers Fair Use Road Map

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    The Tenth Circuit's decision in Whyte Monkee v. Netflix that the streaming service's use of another party's funeral footage in the docuseries "Tiger King" constituted fair use lays out a framework for producers to apply the four statutory fair use factors to their own projects, says Frank D’Angelo at Loeb & Loeb.

  • Quantum Readiness May Paradoxically Raise Contractor Risk

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    The organizations best positioned for the cryptographic system migration deadlines and other requirements under President Donald Trump’s recent quantum executive orders will be those able to inventory their cryptographic dependencies while protecting their vulnerability road map from adversaries, says Jesse Lemon at The Beckage Firm.

  • Why Biotech Cos. Need Litigation Plans Before Bad News

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    Biotech companies should take proactive steps to respond to the growing trend of securities litigation filed against them, due to the inherently uncertain nature of their business models and heightened scrutiny of clinical trial disclosures, regulatory communications and investor-facing statements, says Wesley Horton at FBFK.

  • 10 Years, 150 Cases: The Rise And Fall Of Post-Halo Damages

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Halo v. Pulse in 2016, patent practitioners predicted that enhanced damages would become easier to win, but analysis of every contested district court ruling on a motion for enhanced damages in the last 10 years shows that courts have shown increasing restraint, say attorneys at Reichman Jorgensen.

  • Trump EOs Pair Quantum Push With Cyber Defense Overhaul

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    Two recent executive orders that mark a significant federal commitment to both advancing and defending against quantum technology create potential opportunities for companies in the quantum, AI and technology sectors and pose future compliance obligations contractors should begin considering now, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

  • Series

    Choral Singing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Singing in the New York City Bar Chorus — a hobby partly inspired by the late U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, who infused my clerkship year with opera music — has improved my legal career by refining my abilities to listen, exude confidence and develop emotional intelligence, says Bonnie Baker at Friedman Kaplan.

  • Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

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    As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

  • The Case For Using Final-Offer Damages Forms In IP Suits

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    Recent Federal Circuit decisions, such as Ollnova v. Ecobee, that scrutinize verdict forms in patent infringement disputes potentially render the final-offer damages selection procedure more attractive, though it should not be seen as a replacement for patent damages doctrine, says Brandon Theiss at Addy Hart.

  • 3 Litigation Strategies To Stay Ahead Of Bad Facts

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    A case with damaging facts can still be won if, instead of avoiding the facts, attorneys proactively address them by carefully selecting a strategy of confronting, containing or reframing, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

  • Key Tips For Patenting Antibody-Drug Conjugate Inventions

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    Recent decisions highlight the significant challenges that can arise when patenting antibody-drug conjugates, which require strategic considerations for satisfying heightened written description and enablement requirements, says Xiaoban Xin at FisherBroyles.

  • $885M IBS Drug Verdict Tests Pay-For-Delay Limits

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    The outcome in the Amitiza Antitrust Litigation is significant because it is the first jury trial win for private antitrust plaintiffs in a suit challenging a patent settlement reverse payment since the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the rule-of-reason legal framework in 2013, offering a blueprint for pay-for-delay claims, say attorneys at Katten.

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