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May 06, 2026
TACOMA, Wash. — A federal magistrate judge in Washington granted a defendant website operator a narrow summary judgment win by finding that a plaintiff workplace-training program maker could not show that the operator contributed to third-party infringement of trademarks related to a workplace bingo program; genuine disputes of fact exist as to whether the defendant company itself infringed the marks, the magistrate judge also held.
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May 06, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 5 affirmed a California federal judge’s finding that mobile device technology patent claims asserted in an infringement suit against Google LLC were invalid as directed at the abstract concept of screening notifications without an additional inventive concept.
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May 05, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon federal judge denied a motion from the trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York to dismiss trademark infringement claims brought against the university by Columbia Sportswear Co. and affiliated entities, holding that the sportswear company sufficiently established that the Oregon federal court had specific personal jurisdiction over the university.
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May 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 4 affirmed an Arkansas federal judge’s ruling that a plaintiff-appellant chemical company’s asserted patent claims were invalid as indefinite; the panel saw no error in the judge’s finding that the claim term “about” did not define the boundaries of a claimed range of pH levels.
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May 04, 2026
DENVER — In a reversal from a March 2024 opinion, a 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Oklahoma federal judge’s entry of summary judgment in favor of Netflix Inc. and another production company, now agreeing with the judge that video clips from a funeral used in the documentary television series “Tiger King” constituted a fair use.
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May 01, 2026
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California granted a motion from Shein Distribution Corp. and affiliates to dismiss unfair competition and false designation of origin claims brought against them by another fashion entity, finding that the claims were preempted by federal copyright law because they were based only on the alleged unauthorized use of copyrighted images.
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May 01, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) correctly construed two disputed claim terms during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings initiated by Google LLC, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held April 30; the appeals court rejected the plaintiff-appellant technology company’s claim that PTAB violated the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by providing an analysis that does not enable Federal Circuit review.
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April 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that patent claims describing “optimization” of “constellations” of geometrically mapped data were ineligible as abstract, vacating a Texas federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of eligibility in a patent infringement dispute initiated by a technology company against LG Electronics Inc. and related entities.
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April 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument April 29 on the standard for the inducement of infringement in medical patent cases, including ones that involve “skinny label” generic versions. A bioequivalent manufacturer told the high court that recent precedent emphasized that an entity must take active steps to induce infringement, while a patent-owning pharmaceutical company maintained that statements made by the bioequivalent maker did not clearly disclaim patented cardiovascular uses, thus inducing infringement.
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April 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected Crocs Inc.’s petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc, leaving in place a panel’s January opinion that held that the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) did not abuse its discretion by granting a limited exclusion order (LEO) and not a general exclusion order (GEO) to Crocs against defaulting defendants accused of importing products that infringed or diluted its trademarks.
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April 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Texas federal judge’s denial of a technology company’s request for a new merits trial and a new trial on damages; the panel held that substantial evidence supported a jury’s findings that the company failed to show that one of its asserted patents describing digital subscriber line (DSL) technology was infringed and that another asserted patent was invalidated by prior art references.
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April 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Across two opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed losses for a technology company before both the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), agreeing with findings that the company’s patent claims were invalid as obvious and that it failed to show that a competitor company violated a section of the Tariff Act by importing allegedly infringing products.
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April 27, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge incorrectly determined at the pleading stage that a hip-hop news outlet’s reproduction of a video of basketball player Michael Jordan breaking up a fight constituted fair use, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, finding that the news outlet “potentially provided consumers with a substitute work that obviated the need to seek out (and pay for) the video” shot by a plaintiff-appellant videographer.
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April 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a technology company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in an April 27 order list, turning down a request to hear arguments that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly affirmed a California federal judge’s entry of more than $250,000 in attorney fees and additional sanctions against the company’s counsel for bringing a suit the judge found to be obviously meritless.
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April 24, 2026
NEW YORK — Music companies successfully allege that YouTube imposed at least some technological measures designed to protect content posted on the site, though the exact nature of the restrictions will need to determined on a more full record, a federal judge in New York said in denying a motion to dismiss an artificial intelligence circumvention case.
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April 24, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a gene therapy product maker’s petition for rehearing en banc, leaving in place a panel’s finding that a Delaware federal judge wrongly concluded that a patent’s claims involving genetically engineered cultured host cells containing a recombinant nucleic acid molecule were directed to a natural phenomenon.
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April 24, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a mixed result, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on April 23 affirmed a New York federal judge’s finding that some patent claims asserted against Google LLC and YouTube LLC in an infringement dispute were invalid as indefinite but reversed summary judgment as to other claims; the panel held that factual questions remained regarding whether an accused Google Content ID system met a claim limitation requiring a “‘sublinear’” search.
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April 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled April 22 that a California federal judge too rigidly applied local rules when denying a new trial motion from defendant entities found liable for willful copyright infringement through their distribution of DVDs of a Christian film; the panel’s opinion resolves three consolidated appeals from the case.
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April 23, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Direct copyright infringement claims in an artificial intelligence case will proceed after a federal judge in California concluded that plaintiffs adequately tied the copying of their protected works to MosaicML Inc.’s and Databricks Inc.’s training of large language models (LLMs).
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April 23, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An option in a settlement agreement to license a patent for only $100 is not enough for a plaintiff-appellant technology company to establish a live case or controversy, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, dismissing as moot the company’s challenge to a Massachusetts federal judge’s finding that the patent was invalid as abstract.
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In two opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that the evidence did not support a California federal jury’s determination that defendant medical entities in a sprawling dispute over a cosmetic penile implant device had misappropriated trade secrets; the panel found that all alleged trade secrets had been publicly disclosed in prior art patents.
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April 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 rejected an artist’s petition for a writ of certiorari, leaving in place a partly split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that reversed a California federal jury’s finding that Walmart Inc. had infringed copyrighted photos of the artist’s jellyfish-shaped lamps; the high court refused to hear arguments suggesting that the Ninth Circuit improperly considered the sufficiency of trial evidence while weighing a pretrial motion.
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April 21, 2026
ATLANTA — Reversing a Florida federal judge’s dismissal, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that an entity associated with the late Mexican surrealist artist Frida Kahlo established personal jurisdiction for Lanham Act and other claims against the artist’s grandniece because she is alleged to have sent cease-and-desist letters with false claims of trademark ownership into Florida on her own behalf.
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April 21, 2026
NEW YORK — A quartet of news providers has not shown that automated outputs of an “answers engine” powered by artificial intelligence and retrieval-augmented generation constitute copyright violations or that using tags identifying the source material violates trademark rights, Perplexity AI Inc. tells a federal judge in New York.
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April 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a doll collector’s petition for a writ of certiorari on April 20, leaving in place a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that affirmed a U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) finding that the collector lacked standing to challenge a company’s application for a registered trademark on the name “Rapunzel” for use with dolls.