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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • December 23, 2025

    Authors Sue Top 6 AI Companies For Copyright Infringement

    SAN FRANCISCO — Six authors deviated from the more traditional class action route and instead collectively sued the six major artificial intelligence companies alleging that they willfully and knowingly stole high quality copyrighted works from shadow libraries required to train AI products.  The authors filed their complaint on Dec. 22 in California federal court.

  • December 19, 2025

    Judge Says Amazon Policy Expert Admitted To Testify In Trademark Dispute

    MIAMI — A retained expert can testify on Amazon policies, a Florida federal judge has ruled, rejecting pleas from a company that alleges that unauthorized products were sold online and that argued that the testimony was inadmissible under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

  • December 19, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Hague Convention Bars Email Service To Accused ‘Baby Shark’ Copiers

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge rightly dismissed China-based defendants from an intellectual property suit brought by the company behind the children’s viral song “Baby Shark,” a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Dec. 18; the panel agreed with the judge on a matter of first impression for the appeals court that email service to entities in China is not permissible under the Hague Service Convention.

  • December 19, 2025

    Federal Circuit Says It Lacks Jurisdiction To Consider Idaho Bad Faith Patent Bond

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 18 dismissed for lack of jurisdiction a challenge to an Idaho federal judge’s decisions denying semiconductor manufacturing appellant entities’ motions to dismiss and imposing an $8 million bond under a state law targeting bad faith patent infringement, finding that the decisions were not appealable interlocutory orders.

  • December 18, 2025

    Split Federal Circuit Orders New Car Seat Patent Willful Infringement Trial

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A partly split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 17 reversed a Delaware federal judge’s ruling that a defendant-appellant car seat manufacturer infringed a patent describing a convertible car seat product and ordered a new trial on willful infringement because the judge abused discretion in excluding an email chain that allegedly contained evidence of willful infringement.

  • December 18, 2025

    Judge Trims Trademark Claims From Dispute Over Cookware Design Ownership

    NEW YORK — In a dispute over trademarks associated with Scandinavian kitchenware brand Dansk, a New York federal judge dismissed trademark infringement and false advertising claims, holding that the plaintiff entity failed to show that it had used or intended to use the marks at issue after being assigned them.

  • December 17, 2025

    TTAB Denial Of ‘Basin Beverage Co.’ Mark Affirmed By Federal Circuit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision to deny a man’s multiple-class application for the mark “Basin Beverage Co.,” holding that substantial evidence supported the TTAB’s finding that the proposed mark could be confused with multiple trademarks already in use.

  • December 17, 2025

    Country Musician, AI Music Company Debate Copyright Claims

    NEW YORK — An independent country musician and artificial intelligence music company Uncharted Labs Inc. have briefed a motion to dismiss in a case challenging whether the company’s Udio.com music generation site violates copyright and Tennessee law.

  • December 17, 2025

    Parts Of News Publisher’s Copyright Suit May Proceed, MDL Judge Says

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The federal judge in New York overseeing multidistrict litigation involving OpenAI Inc. and related entities dismissed a news publisher’s technological circumvention claims based on a robots.txt file and unjust enrichment claims but said some of the publisher’s copyright action can proceed.

  • December 17, 2025

    Supreme Court Won’t Consider Plaintiffs’ Sanctions In Tape Patent Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied an inventor and his company’s petition for a writ of certiorari and will not consider whether the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in affirming an Ohio federal judge’s entry of sanctions against the petitioners.

  • December 17, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Dismissal Of P2P Patent Complaint In 2nd Appeal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 16 affirmed a California federal judge’s dismissal of a technology company’s patent infringement suit against a competitor, agreeing that the plaintiff-appellant failed to show that the accused peer-to-peer (P2P) video streaming product met a required claim limitation.

  • December 16, 2025

    Federal Circuit Agrees Vascular Port Patent Claims Invalid As Anticipated

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 15 affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s decision to grant judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) to a defendant entity in a dispute over patents describing a vascular access port product, finding that the judge properly determined that the claims at issue were anticipated by prior art references.

  • December 16, 2025

    Judge: Tax Business Owner Is Co-Author Of Copyrighted Tax Software

    CHICAGO — A Chicago federal judge granted a plaintiff tax appeal business’ motion for summary judgment, agreeing that the business could not have infringed copyrighted tax assessment software because the company’s founder was a co-author of the software.

  • December 15, 2025

    High Court Rejects ‘After-Arising Technology’ Challenge To Entresto Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 15 rejected a generic drugmaker’s petition for a writ of certiorari, leaving in place a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that a Delaware federal judge erred in holding that claims in a Novartis Pharmaceutical Corp. patent covering the Novartis heart failure drug were not properly enabled.

  • December 15, 2025

    RFID Patent Claims Invalid As Obvious, Federal Circuit Agrees With PTAB

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 12 affirmed a series of inter partes review (IPR) findings of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); the panel held that substantial evidence supported PTAB’s findings that all challenged claims in patents describing radio-frequency identification (RFID) technologies in various systems are unpatentable as obvious.

  • December 12, 2025

    Judge Says Expert Can Opine On Damages In Dispute Over Michael Jordan Trademarks

    SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge ruled that an expert retained by a manufacturer of trading cards and other sports memorabilia can opine on the fair market value of a company’s alleged unauthorized use of Michael Jordan’s distinctive and valuable trademarks.

  • December 12, 2025

    Co-Sponsor Of AIA Calls On High Court To Take Up Challenge Of IPR Scope

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — One of the co-sponsors of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), a former director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and a former Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals chief judge urge the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a technology company’s contention that the Federal Circuit expanded the scope of inter partes review (IPR) to include consideration of an “abandoned patent application” when affirming findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

  • December 12, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms TTAB’s Cancellation Of ‘More Than An Athlete’ Marks

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the Trademark  Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision to cancel a sports-based nonprofit organization’s trademarks containing the phrase “more than an athlete,” agreeing that a LeBron James-founded company had shown that it acquired common-law rights to a similar phrase earlier than the nonprofit’s registration.

  • December 11, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Figures In Lego IP Row Fall Under Earlier Injunction

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel again held Dec. 10 that it lacked appellate jurisdiction to consider a Connecticut federal judge’s ruling that a toy company’s redesigned figurines still ran afoul of a preliminary injunction previously ordered in an intellectual property dispute with Lego A/S and affiliated Lego entities (collectively, Lego).

  • December 11, 2025

    Federal Circuit Rejects Arguments From IBM, Zillow In Dueling IPR Appeals

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a dispute over a patent held by the International Business Machines Corp. related to single-sign-on (SSO) technology with Zillow Group Inc. and a related entity, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Panel affirmed U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) findings that some claims in the patent were invalid while others were not, rejecting arguments from both parties.

  • December 10, 2025

    Federal Circuit Denies Mandamus Over Rejected IPR Petition In Web Patent Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A company that unsuccessfully challenged website-building patents owned by another entity before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) saw its petition for a writ of mandamus denied by a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 9; the panel held that the petitioner failed to show any justifiable reason to order the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to institute inter partes review (IPR).

  • December 10, 2025

    Federal Circuit Reverses TTAB Rejection Of Tea-Based Mark For Coffee Shop Name

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 9 reversed a decision from the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) rejecting a coffee company’s application for a trademark on the name “Kahwa” as the name of coffee shops; the panel said there was no evidence in the record that the word for a type of tea would be understood by customers as a generic term for coffee shops.

  • December 10, 2025

    JMOL Grant To Shopify In Patent Row Affirmed By Federal Circuit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Delaware did not err in granting judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of noninfringement in a declaratory judgment patent case brought by Shopify Inc. against a patent holder, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held, agreeing that the patent holder failed to show that an element of Shopify’s user interface (UI) met certain claim limitations.

  • December 09, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms JMOL On Patent, Trade Secret Claims Against Goodyear

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in Ohio correctly granted judgment as a matter of law to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. because no reasonable jury could have found that the plaintiffs/appellants should have been added as inventors to one of Goodyear’s patents on a self-inflating tire, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Dec. 8.

  • December 09, 2025

    U.S. Government Tells High Court To Hear Fight Over ‘Skinny Label’ Infringement

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an amicus curiae brief, the U.S. government tells the U.S. Supreme Court that it should take up a bioequivalent drug manufacturer’s petition for a writ of certiorari because the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding that the petitioner’s “skinny label” generic version of a prescription cardiovascular medication constituted reverse infringement is at odds with the intention behind carve-outs under the Hatch-Waxman Act.