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Mealey's Intellectual Property

May 20, 2025
9th Circuit Affirms Preliminary Injunction In French Fry Mark Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to impose a preliminary injunction in a dispute over the ownership of trademarks associated with a french fry company in the Philippines, holding that the defendant-appellant company failed to show that the plaintiff entity was unlikely to succeed on the merits.
May 20, 2025
Lil Nas X Photos Not Shown To Be Copies, 9th Circuit Agrees

SAN FRANCISCO — An artist failed to show that his semi-nude Instagram photo posts were reasonably likely to have been accessed by singer and rapper Lil Nas X, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, upholding a California federal judge’s dismissal of the artist’s copyright infringement suit brought over the rapper’s own posts.
May 20, 2025
Federal Circuit Splits On PTAB Review Of Stylus Patent; Majority Orders Reversal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 19 held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should have gone further in its findings that challenged claims in patents related to a device to be used with a stylus were unpatentable as obvious, reversing the PTAB’s findings related to one patent claim and affirming regarding multiple others.
May 20, 2025
Magistrate Judge Won’t Reconsider ChatGPT Output Preservation Ruling

SAN FRANCISCO — A magistrate judge in California turned away OpenAI entities’ concerns over privacy and the technical issues in denying reconsideration of an order requiring preservation of ChatGPT outputs, saying the company had not shown that the outputs were not relevant to the case or that a different outcome was required.
May 19, 2025
Lack Of High Court Quorum Begets 2nd Circuit Copyright Order Affirmation

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 19 affirmed a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold a judge’s rejection of a pro se author’s copyright claims against a host of entities; the high court noted in an order list that the affirmation was the result of a lack of quorum of justices.
May 19, 2025
Judge: Software Maker Failed To Show How Tech Firm Infringed On Program

NEWARK, N.J — A software company failed to show that a defendant technology company infringed on a copyrighted software program, a New Jersey federal judge held; the judge said that the plaintiff company failed to “explain when or how the allegedly infringing computers were used other than through vague and conclusory statements.”
May 16, 2025
Magistrate Grants Discovery Motion In Trademark Row Involving Web-Based Retailers

DENVER — A Colorado magistrate judge granted a fencing company’s motion for leave to conduct jurisdictional discovery in its trademark infringement suit against web-based retailers, finding that the jurisdictional discovery information sought is necessary for the court to determine whether it has personal jurisdiction over the defendants.
May 16, 2025
Anthropic Admits Its Claude AI Mangled Cite Used By Expert In Copyright Suit

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Anthropic PBC’s Claude artificial intelligence mangled a citation to a study referenced by an expert in a discovery dispute during formatting, but it was an “honest citation mistake” and the crux of the cite and the positions for which it stands were all correct, the company lawyer said May 15 in a response to a federal judge in California overseeing a copyright case.
May 16, 2025
Federal Judge Grants Preliminary Injunction In ‘Breeze’ Vape Mark Case

DETROIT — A federal judge in Michigan preliminarily enjoined a vape product company from selling products bearing a mark with the word “breeze,” holding that plaintiff Breeze Smoke LLC adequately illustrated the likelihood of its success on the merits of its trademark infringement claims.
May 15, 2025
Judge Finds No Video Patent Infringement After $26M Verdict Against Google

WACO, Texas — A federal judge in Texas granted Google LLC and YouTube LLC’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of noninfringement, reversing a jury’s nearly $26 million patent infringement verdict in favor of another online video company; the judge ruled that the plaintiff company’s infringement theory is not supported by the claim text of its patent.
May 15, 2025
Judge Stays Discovery In ‘Miss Cleo’ IP Fight While Mulling Dismissal

NEW YORK — A New York federal judge held that defendant television networks illustrated that there was adequate reason to stay discovery while the court considers a motion to dismiss intellectual property claims related to the television psychic character “Miss Cleo”; the judge held that the Psychic Readers Network Inc. (PRN) failed to show that it would be prejudiced by the stay of discovery.
May 15, 2025
OpenAI Must Preserve Output Data, Magistrate Judge Says

SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must preserve user output data and segregate output log data going forward after consolidated news plaintiffs indicated that the amount of data being deleted is significant and the company offered no evidence about any efforts it was taking or could take to preserve the evidence, a federal magistrate judge in California said while setting a briefing schedule and hearing on potential spoliation motions.
May 15, 2025
Court Won’t Reconsider Limiting Copyright To Humans

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied rehearing and rehearing en banc of a ruling limiting copyright protections to human authors, turning away a man’s arguments that artificial intelligences share similarities with corporations entitled to such protections.
May 14, 2025
3rd Circuit: Attorney Fees Valid Under Lanham Act In Robotics Company Squabble

PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge correctly dismissed one contract claim but was wrong to dismiss another in a dispute involving the intellectual property rights of two robotics ventures and an early investor whose relationship with the ventures later soured, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.
May 14, 2025
PTAB Got Conception Analysis Wrong For CRISPR Patent, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly required scientists from the University of California and other facilities to show that their claimed invention would work to show that they conceived of a gene editing technology first, reviving a dispute over the CRISPR-Cas9 system.
May 14, 2025
AI Plaintiffs Direct Court To Copyright Office Report On Fair Use

SAN FRANCISCO — The plaintiffs in an artificial intelligence copyright suit directed a federal judge in California to a recent U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) report suggesting that fair use defenses might not be available when the AI’s purpose is similar to that of the copyrighted training data and that “the speed and scale at which” AIs can produce similar works could be considered an effect on the market.
May 14, 2025
Company Can’t Use IPR Estoppel To Get New Trial, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said substantial evidence supported a jury’s finding that multiple claims in a tech company’s patents related to portable memory devices were shown to be obvious and anticipated as per prior art references, affirming that and other findings in the dispute, holding that inter partes review (IPR) estoppel “does not preclude a petitioner from asserting that a claimed invention was known or used by others, on sale, or in public use in district court.”
May 13, 2025
Authors, Nvidia Agree To Consolidate AI Copyright Suits

SAN FRANCISCO — Authors in a pair of federal suits in California alleging improper use of copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence agreed in a May 12 joint stipulation to consolidate their actions against Nvidia Corp.
May 12, 2025
6th Circuit Affirms Judge’s Dismissal Of Trademark Suit Over Word ‘Chipotle’

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said May 9 that an Ohio federal judge rightly dismissed a man’s trademark infringement suit against a food manufacturing company, agreeing with the judge that the man failed to state a claim of trademark infringement regarding marks he held on phrases related to chipotle peppers in salsas.
May 12, 2025
Tire Company: High Court Must Consider Question Of Illinois Litigation Privilege

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A tire corporation emphasized in a brief that the U.S. Supreme Court should grant its petition for a writ of certiorari, saying that an opinion from the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “expanded Illinois’ traditionally narrow absolute litigation privilege beyond what any other court applying Illinois law has ever done” in its consideration of trade dress and patent claims brought against the company by another tire entity based in Japan.
May 09, 2025
Email Patent Applicant Failed To Rebut Obviousness, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it affirmed an examiner’s rejection of a man’s application for a patent on an email annotation system, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said May 8, agreeing that the application’s claims were invalid as obvious.
May 09, 2025
Federal Circuit: Drug Maker Lacked Standing To Challenge PTAB Validity Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, two Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panels ruled against Incyte Corp. and a related entity in patent disputes that involved Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Inc. and the compound ruxolitinib, the appellate court reversed a New Jersey federal judge’s grant of preliminary injunction in Incyte’s favor and said the company lacked standing to challenge a finding from U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that it failed to show the invalidity of Sun’s patent.
May 09, 2025
If Corporations Enjoy Copyright Protection, So Should AI, Man Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Corporations and artificial intelligences share similarities, such a lack of natural lifespans and families, yet copyright protections for the former “is simply not controversial” while a panel rejected such protections for the later, a man says in a petition for en banc review of a District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appealsruling requiring a human author for copyright purposes.
May 08, 2025
Federal Circuit: TTAB Right To Affirm ‘Space Force’ Mark Rejection

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 7 affirmed a decision from the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) to uphold the rejection of an attorney’s application for the mark US SPACE FORCE, which came only days after President Donald J. Trump’s 2018 initial public proposals of the military branch, which was subsequently formally created.
May 08, 2025
Federal Circuit: Appellants Could Face Sanctions In IP Fight For Faulty Briefing

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Attorneys for two companies that appealed nearly $4 million in judgments against them in a decade-long intellectual property dispute over hookless shower curtains could face sanctions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in a sua sponte order, if they cannot show how they have not repeatedly violated circuit rules by inappropriately separating arguments between the companies’ respective briefs.