Mealey's Intellectual Property
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July 16, 2025
5th Circuit Vacates, Remands Ruling On IP Exclusion In Coverage Dispute
NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated a lower federal court’s ruling that an insurance policy’s intellectual property (IP) exclusion unambiguously barred coverage for an underlying lawsuit alleging that an insured bribed and induced a competitor’s employees to wrongfully misappropriate confidential information and remanded, holding that the insured set forth a reasonable construction of the exclusion.
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July 15, 2025
After Settlement Notice, Judge Moots Motions In Web-Based Retailers Trademark Row
DENVER — After a fencing company and the web-based retailers it sued over alleged trademark infringement notified the court that the parties entered into a settlement agreement, a Colorado federal judge on July 14 issued a docket-only order denying as moot motions to dismiss and for an extension of time related to discovery.
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July 15, 2025
Federal Circuit Finds No Error In AAPA Use In PTAB Catheter Ruling
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should have found all claims of a patent related to a cardiovascular catheter device to be unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held July 14, affirming the bulk of the board’s findings but reversing as to a single claim PTAB did not invalidate.
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July 15, 2025
Judge: Fair Use Protects Anthropic’s Use Of Copyrighted Works
SAN FRANCISCO — The use of authors’ copyrighted works for training the large language models behind Anthropic PBC’s artificial intelligence was transformative and is akin to schooling children and constitutes fair use, leaving only allegations that the company pirated copies for inclusion in a digital library, a federal judge in California said in largely granting summary judgment to Anthropic.
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July 15, 2025
Judge Sanctions IP Lawyer For Giving Netflix Info To 3rd Party In Patent Row
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge ordered sanctions against an attorney from Ramey LLP who formerly represented a pro se plaintiff in a patent infringement dispute brought against Netflix Inc., holding that the attorney inappropriately shared discovery information with a third party the court previously blocked from being joined to the litigation.
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July 15, 2025
Independent Music Artist Sues AI Music Companies Over Copyright
In a pair of class lawsuits filed in federal courts in Massachusetts and New York, a country music artist and his recording company claim that artificial intelligence companies illegally copied his and other independent artists’ works, bypassing the type of licensing deals on which artists like himself rely.
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July 15, 2025
Class Says OpenAI, Others Stole Copyrighted Works To Train AI
SAN FRANCISCO — Various OpenAI Inc. entities created their artificial intelligence ChatGPT by stealing copyrighted works from the internet rather than obtaining the material legally, plaintiffs allege in a class action filed in California federal court.
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July 14, 2025
4th Circuit: No Error In Injunction Barring Gaming Chair Mark Use In Europe
RICHMOND, Va. — A panel in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 11 affirmed a Virginia federal judge’s implementation of a permanent injunction that bars a video game peripheral maker’s use of the mark “GTRacing” internationally; the panel held that the injunction does not run afoul of the Lanham Act’s territorial limitations because it enforces a previously negotiated and subsequently breached settlement agreement.
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July 14, 2025
Clothing Maker Seeks New Trial After Verdict In Penn State Trademark Fight
HARRISBURG, Pa. — An apparel maker argues that it deserves either judgment as a matter of law in its favor or a new trial in a Pennsylvania federal court after a jury found that it willfully infringed marks held by The Pennsylvania State University and a judge issued a permanent injunction barring it from further uses of the marks, maintaining its contention that the university failed to show the apparel maker used the marks in an infringing way.
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July 14, 2025
Judge Won’t Reconsider Ruling Denying Leave To Amend In AI Case
NEW YORK — News outlets will not get to amend their copyright action involving ChatGPT after a federal judge in New York determined that different rulings by other judges and the case’s inclusion in a recently created multidistrict litigation did not warrant revisiting denying leave to amend.
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July 11, 2025
Federal Circuit: Novelist Can’t Register Shrimp Mark For Florida Restaurant
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said July 10 that a crime fiction novelist and restaurant owner cannot register “Yucatan Shrimp” as a trademark because it is merely descriptive, affirming decisions by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB).
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July 11, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity Of Smart HVAC System Patent Claims
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed decisions by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that invalidated patents related to heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) held by EcoFactor Inc. in a series of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings brought by Google LLC, in the latest step in the battle between the companies over smart thermostat technologies.
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July 11, 2025
4th Circuit OKs Scrapping Of Manufacturer’s Repeat Copyright, Trade Secret Claims
RICHMOND, Va. — A Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a Taiwanese manufacturer’s copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation and other claims against a machine distributor failed for being based on conclusory allegations; the panel further found no error in a North Carolina federal judge’s refusal to allow the manufacturer leave to amend its complaint after the company “engaged in pleading practices that approached bad faith.”
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July 10, 2025
Federal Circuit Again Finds For Janssen On Mental Health Drug Patent
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New Jersey federal judge’s finding that two appellant medicine makers failed to show that claims in a patent related to dosing regimens for an injectable schizophrenia treatment were invalid as obvious, holding that it saw no error in the judge’s analysis of the motivation to combine prior art references.
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July 09, 2025
Device Maker Tells High Court Shortened Discovery Timeline Tainted Patent Trial
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A medical product company tells the U.S. Supreme Court that a North Carolina federal court violated its due process rights by changing both the time to trial and the time for discovery in a patent infringement case for which the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has already ordered a new trial.
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July 09, 2025
8th Circuit Agrees: No Federal Jurisdiction Over ‘Chicken Coop’ Mark Claims
ST. LOUIS — A panel in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 8 affirmed an Iowa federal judge’s dismissal of a chicken restaurant company’s action seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement of another restaurant’s trademarks, agreeing that the District Court lacked jurisdiction because the complaint was filed to assert federal defenses to already pending state actions.
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July 09, 2025
6th Circuit: Songwriter’s Granddaughter Can’t Void Copyright Terminations
CINCINNATI — A panel in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a Tennessee federal judge’s decision to dismiss a complaint from the granddaughter of the writer of American songbook standards like “Que Sera, Sera” and “Silver Bells” challenging her mother’s terminations of the copyrights for the songs.
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July 08, 2025
Federal Circuit Affirms Cisco’s Noninfringement Of Server Management Patent
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on July 7 affirmed a Massachusetts federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement on some patent counts and a jury’s verdict of noninfringement on others, agreeing that Egenera Inc. failed to show that Cisco Systems Inc. infringed a patent on a server management system.
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July 08, 2025
Judge: Game-Maker Failed To Show Use Of Word ‘Pie’ Was Infringing
ANNISTON, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge dismissed without prejudice an educational game-maker’s trademark infringement and dilution suit against a seller of school products, finding that the game-maker failed to show that the defendant company used the word “pie” in an infringing way.
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July 07, 2025
Federal Judge Tosses Software Company’s IP Claims For Jurisdictional Issues
RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina on July 3 held that a software company was not the real party in interest in its intellectual property suit involving a software it makes for insurance companies after it assigned all of its intellectual property rights to its parent company, dismissing the complaint.
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July 07, 2025
5th Circuit: R&B Singer Can’t Target Bandmates Under Lanham Act
NEW ORLEANS — The Lanham Act does not allow for trademark’s co-owner to bring claims against other co-owners, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, affirming a Texas federal judge’s decision to grant summary judgment to defendant members of the 1990s rhythm and blues group Jade in a dispute over the group’s name brought by another member.
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July 03, 2025
Dismissal Stipulated In Coverage Dispute Over Loss Of Patent Litigation Counsel
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — An inventor, his Colorado-based company and a captive insurer filed a joint stipulation of dismissal in a Tennessee federal court, resolving and dismissing with prejudice all claims asserted in a case concerning a coverage dispute over loss of patent litigation counsel.
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July 03, 2025
Judge Grants Summary Judgment On FOIA Claim Involving Copyrighted JFK Film
SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge granted the National Archives & Records Administration’s (NARA) motion for summary judgment on allegations by an open records advocacy group that it violated the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), holding that it was not a violation for NARA to require proof of permission from the holder of copyrights to allow access to a well-known video showing the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
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July 03, 2025
Judge Finds For Meta On Fair Use, DMCA In AI Copyright Suit
SAN FRANCISCO — Plaintiffs in a copyright infringement suit over Meta Platforms Inc.’s artificial intelligence could potentially prevail on the theory that the technology threatens to so dilute the market for their works that fair use doesn’t protect the conduct, but the “half-hearted argument” presented by the plaintiffs falls short, a federal judge in California said in granting Meta summary judgment on fair use and Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims.
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July 02, 2025
High Court Rejects Micron’s Mandamus Bid To Protect Source Code
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an American chip maker’s request for relief from a California federal judge’s discovery order requiring it to turn its source code over to a Chinese rival in a patent infringement dispute.