Analysis

Trade Secret Filings Hit Record High In 2025, Report Finds

By Ivan Moreno

Trade secret litigation reached an all-time high in 2025, with more than 1,500 federal cases filed for the first time ever, according to a new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina, which also highlights trends about damages, the busiest courts and the law firms most frequently involved.

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New Squires Order Allows 4 Patent Reviews, Denies 25 Others

By Theresa Schliep

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires instituted four America Invents Act patent challenges while denying 25 others in his most recent summary decision.

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Wrong Standard Sunk Benesch Ex-Client's Suit, 7th Circ. Told

By Lauraann Wood

A former Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP client urged the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday to revive her malpractice suit claiming the firm botched her potential trade secrets theft case, arguing a lower court held her to too high a pleading standard in tossing her case.

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Chancery Awards $50M To Arxada In Trade Secrets Case

By Adam Lidgett

Chemicals company Arxada on Wednesday was awarded more than $50 million in damages and expenses in its lawsuit in Delaware's Court of Chancery claiming the owner of a company it bought took its trade secrets with his family to form a competitor.

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Judge Lets BMW Drop Contempt Bid After 'Battle Royale'

By Ryan Davis

Following what BMW called a "battle royale" where the parties accused each other of misrepresentation, a Texas federal judge Wednesday granted the automaker's motion to withdraw its bid to hold Onesta IP in contempt of a now-stayed order for the licensing company to drop German litigation over U.S. patents.

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'Danke' And 'Merci' Chocolates Not Confusing, TTAB Rules

By Ivan Moreno

A trademark tribunal made precedential a ruling that a chocolate maker's application for "Danke" can proceed because it's not confusingly similar to a confectioner's registration for "Merci," even though both mean "thank you" in different languages.

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Ex-Google Engineer's Trade Secret Theft Case Goes To Jury

By Bonnie Eslinger

Software engineer Linwei Ding "stole, cheated and lied" when he worked at Google LLC, taking its artificial intelligence trade secrets to help himself and China, a California federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, urging them to convict him of economic espionage and trade secret theft.

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USPTO Seeks 'Serious Sanctions' For Chinese Co.'s 19K Apps

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says the "most serious sanctions" are warranted against a China-based company for filing more than 19,000 trademark submissions using names of U.S.-licensed attorneys who did not review the applications, saying submissions were at times filed in 3-minute intervals "or less."

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Anthropic Hit With 2nd Music IP Suit, This Time For $3B

By Hailey Konnath

Major music publishers already suing Anthropic for copyright infringement filed a second, $3 billion suit against the artificial intelligence company on Wednesday, a move they say is necessary to hold Anthropic accountable for "brazen," newly discovered mass infringement of sheet music and songbooks.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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After Fed. Circ. Remand, PTAB Again Backs Bausch Patent

By Adam Lidgett

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has found again that MSN Laboratories failed to show that a drug patent owned by Bausch Health Ireland Ltd. was invalid, after the Federal Circuit told the board to take another look last year.

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Apple Screen Maker Gets Partial Win In PTAB Reviews

By Adam Lidgett

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has invalidated the entirety of an Optronic Sciences LLC pixel structure device patent, while finding that challenger BOE Technology Group Co. was only able to show that some claims in a separate patent were invalid.

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Biogen Can't Escape Amended Antitrust Suit Over MS Drug

By Dorothy Atkins

Biogen Inc. must face health plans' claims that it bribed pharmacy benefit managers to stifle generics competition for its multiple sclerosis drug Tecfidera, after an Illinois federal judge found Wednesday that the plans' latest amended complaint in their consolidated antitrust litigation corrects her prior concerns with the pleadings.

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Record Label Says 2 Live Crew Gave Up Rights In Bankruptcy

By Carolina Bolado

A Miami-based record label told an Eleventh Circuit panel Wednesday that a lower court erred in determining rap group 2 Live Crew never gave up termination rights under the Copyright Act, arguing instead that the rights were included in the sale of the records in a 1996 bankruptcy.

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Expert Fights Dismissal Of Jan. 6 Report Copyright Case

By Cara Salvatore

A jury bias researcher who has accused an attorney of copying and reusing a report to help three Jan. 6 insurrection defendants get their trials moved has urged a D.C. federal court not to dismiss her copyright lawsuit, saying that wholesale reuse of her work is not fair use.

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Fed. Circ. Won't Revive MasterCard Trade Secret Claims

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit declined to revive trade secret theft claims Wednesday brought by a MasterCard unit against two former McKinsey consultants, agreeing with a lower court that the company had failed to identify the alleged trade secrets with enough specificity.

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Amazon Must Face Delivery Driver Restroom Tech Claims

By Elliot Weld

A Washington federal judge on Wednesday mostly allowed a company's claims accusing Amazon.com Inc. of stealing technology that routes delivery drivers to nearby bathrooms to proceed, saying he would not stop it from presenting its misappropriation claims.

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Brief

Alito Rejects Bid To Pause 3rd Circ.'s Computer Fraud Ruling

By Ivan Moreno

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Wednesday denied a debt collection agency's request to stay a Third Circuit decision that found the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act does not support claims against employees who share work passwords.

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Mich. Clears Way For High School Athletes To Earn NIL Money

By Alex Lawson

High school athletes in Michigan will now be allowed to profit off their name, image and likeness after state authorities unveiled a policy change to expand and emphasize "personal branding activities" for students.

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Gospel Label Seeks To Stop Singer's Music Release In IT Row

By Kelcey Caulder

A Christian music record label asked a Georgia federal court to block a Grammy Award-winning gospel singer and his company from releasing new music in a dispute over intellectual property rights and millions in royalties.

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Crowell & Moring Adds Tech Firm IP Atty In Southern Calif.

By James Mills

Crowell & Moring LLP is expanding its California team, bringing in an intellectual property attorney most recently with biotechnology firm Grail as a partner in its Orange County office in Irvine.

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ArentFox Schiff Launches Longevity Industry Group

By Gianna Ferrarin

ArentFox Schiff LLP on Wednesday announced the launch of a group geared toward advising companies focused on advancing wellness, preventive health care and the longevity of life.

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Expect Major Shifts In Patent And Trademark Policy This Year

New leadership and initiatives promise to bring consequential changes to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's practices in 2026, likely favoring patent allowance and issuance, as well as streamlining trademark processes, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

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And Now A Word From The Panel: MDL Year In Review

2025 was a roller coaster for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, with the panel canceling one hearing session due to the absence of new MDL petitions, yet also issuing rulings on more new MDL petitions than in 2024 — making it clear that MDLs are still thriving, says Alan Rothman at Sidley Austin.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Judicial Use Informs Guardrails

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado discusses why having a sense of how generative AI tools behave, where they add value, where they introduce risk and how they are reshaping the practice of law is key for today's judges.

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Feature

From TikTok To The Courtroom, The Rise Of Lawfluencers

By Chris Villani

A growing group of legal influencers with huge followings say social media use is helping them expand their practices along with their brands and offering marketing lessons that even BigLaw can learn from.

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Ex-Worker Says Goldstein Offered Crypto, Gifts As IRS Probed

By Jared Foretek

A former employee at Thomas Goldstein's law firm who resigned after the Internal Revenue Service began investigating the firm said that the SCOTUSblog founder suddenly began offering her bitcoin, payment from case settlements and potential student loan relief after federal agents visited the office.

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Clemency Favors White Collar Offenders, New Study Shows

By Phillip Bantz

White collar criminal defendants are more likely than other types of offenders to receive presidential pardons, especially under the Trump administration, a new analysis of clemency actions shows, raising concerns about a system one expert called "broken."

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Attacks Haven't Killed Judiciary's AI Rule, May Strengthen It

By Jeff Overley

Federal judiciary advisers Thursday confronted the most extensive opposition yet in their campaign to ensure the reliability of evidence utilizing artificial intelligence, but the criticism appeared constructive, possibly upping the odds of a digital age addition to U.S. court rules.

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DOJ Awards $1M In First For Antitrust Whistleblower Program

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division awarded a whistleblower $1 million for providing information that led to charges and a $3.28 million criminal fine against used-vehicle auction site EBlock, marking the first-ever award under a new antitrust whistleblower program, the DOJ announced Thursday.

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Crowell & Moring Loses DC Appeal In $30M COVID Rent Dispute

By Isaac Monterose

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled against Crowell & Moring LLP's appeal for its $30 million rent dispute with a D.C. office landlord that refused to grant a coronavirus-related rent abatement.

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Bondi Elevates Pa. US Atty Amid Appointments Scrutiny

By Matthew Santoni

The first assistant U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania is being retained and elevated to full U.S. attorney, Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced Thursday, though the appointment will have to remain temporary or he could face the same questions about his appointment as other top prosecutors in President Donald Trump's administration.

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