LeBron Secures 'More Than An Athlete' TM Win At Fed. Circ.

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday shot down a challenge to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board's finding that NBA star LeBron James and his company Uninterrupted IP LLC have the trademark rights to the phrase "More Than An Athlete."

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2nd Circ. Seems Iffy On Salvation For 'Made In Heaven' IP Row

By Theresa Schliep

A Second Circuit panel seemed skeptical Wednesday of an Italian prop and set designer's challenge to a lower court's dismissal of his infringement case against artist Jeff Koons over his "Made in Heaven" series, as the judges appeared to doubt arguments that he didn't bring the suit too late.

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Too Zealous? EscapeX Challenges Sanctions In Google Case

By Elliot Weld

EscapeX IP is asking the Federal Circuit to review en banc a decision upholding $255,000 in fees and sanctions for what a California federal judge found to be a frivolous patent suit against Google, arguing the decision contradicts precedent and raises questions for the whole legal profession.

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Atty Fees In Meta Pixel Privacy Action Reduced In Final Deal

By Joyce Hanson

A New York federal judge has reduced an attorney fees award by about $100,000 in a Video Privacy Protection Act class action settlement with Scientific American's publisher, modifying the fees to approximately $200,000 in his order granting final approval of the deal.

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Feds Drop 2 FIFA Bribery Cases Despite Appellate Win

By Lauren Berg

Brooklyn federal prosecutors are dropping criminal cases against a former 21st Century Fox executive and an Argentine sports marketing company in the long-running FIFA corruption probe, just months after successfully appealing the dismissal of their honest-services fraud conspiracy convictions.

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Analysis

Wanted: Temporary US Attorney, No Experience Needed

By Phillip Bantz

Frustrated by a string of court rulings disqualifying several of his U.S. attorney picks, President Donald Trump lamented recently that he might "just have to keep appointing people for three months and then just appoint another one, another one." Experts say the idea raises legal and practical issues.

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Meta Hit With Patent Claims Over Ray-Ban Smart Glasses

By Elliot Weld

Meta is facing a lawsuit by a smart appliance company that claims Meta's Orion artificial intelligence-powered smart glasses and its Ray-Ban smart glasses are infringing a patent.

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Colo. Asks 10th Circ. To OK Social Media Law Aimed At Minors

By Zach Dupont

The Colorado Attorney General's Office asked the Tenth Circuit to review a lower court decision to enjoin the state from enforcing its recently passed law that would display warning messages to minors using social media platforms after a trade association claimed the law was unconstitutional.

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Capital One, Influencers Seek OK For Commissions Deal

By Emilie Ruscoe

Financial services giant Capital One has pledged to pay influencers commissions, plus up to nearly $4 million in attorney fees and costs, and make changes to its online shopping browser extension to settle claims that it siphoned commissions away from influencer participants in its affiliate marketing program.

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StubHub Brass Face Suit Over IPO Cash Flow Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

Officers and directors of event ticketing platform StubHub Holdings Inc. allegedly breached their fiduciary duties in the lead-up to StubHub's $758 million initial public offering in September by concealing a change dramatically affecting the company's free cash flow, according to a new shareholder derivative suit.

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DOJ Gets Another OK To Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Docs

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday secured another Manhattan federal judge's permission to unseal grand jury and other evidentiary materials related to the investigation of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, with the judge saying that a new law Congress passed "unequivocally" intends for the materials to be public.

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UScellular Can't Call 'Checkmate' In Fraud Suit, Justices Told

By Christopher Cole

Two whistleblowers told the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday that UScellular cannot escape claims of spectrum auction fraud by arguing they had "pleaded themselves out of court" at an earlier stage of the False Claims Act suit.

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Civil Rights Orgs. Side-Eye Probe Of Affiliate-Network Ties

By Nadia Dreid

The FCC has asked for the public's two cents on "barriers" that local TV stations face in their relationships with national networks, but a coalition of civil rights groups said the inquiry is further evidence of a pattern of "aiding and abetting ... authoritarian conduct."

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Gov't Urges Combining Verizon, AT&T Cases Over FCC Fines

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to pair Verizon's appeal of a $46 million FCC penalty with a similar case involving AT&T that centers on the FCC's ability to issue fines without a jury trial.

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Brief

Keep Power Limits Low To Protect Satellites, DirecTV Says

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission has been toying with the idea of rising power limits for nongeostationary orbit satellites, and while the agency thinks the move could increase the availability of satellite broadband, DirecTV says the decision would be bad news for satellite TV.

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Denial Of Benefits Clause Key In Nixing $214M Ecuador Claim

By Caroline Simson

An international tribunal concluded that Ecuador was entitled to deny treaty protections to a Nevada company that initiated a $214 million investor-state claim over a gambling ban enacted in 2011 because the company did not have substantial business activities in the U.S., according to the now-public award.

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Identifying And Resolving Conflicts Among Class Members

As the Fifth Circuit's recent decision in Nova Scotia Health Employees' Pension Plan v. McDermott International illustrates, intraclass conflicts can determine the fate of a class action — and such conflicts can be surprisingly difficult to identify, says Andrew Faisman, a clerk at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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How 11th Circ.'s Qui Tam Review Could Affect FCA Litigation

On Dec. 12, the Eleventh Circuit will hear arguments in U.S. ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, setting the stage for a decision that could drastically reduce enforcement under the False Claims Act, and presenting an opportunity to seek U.S. Supreme Court review of the act's whistleblower provisions, say attorneys at Epstein Becker.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Welcome To Miami

After nearly 20 years in operation, the Miami Complex Business Litigation Division is a pioneer upon which other jurisdictions in the state have been modeled, adopting many innovations to keep its cases running more efficiently and staffing experienced judges who are accustomed to hearing business disputes, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

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Bonus Spotlight

Litigation Shops Paying Above-Market Bonuses, Reports Say

By Andrea Keckley

Litigation boutiques Yetter Coleman LLP and Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP are giving above-market bonuses to their associates, according to reports from Above the Law and Bloomberg.

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Jack Smith To Launch Firm With Willkie Partner, 2 Ex-Deputies

By Jack Rodgers

Jack Smith, the former Justice Department special counsel appointed to investigate President Donald Trump, is set to launch his own firm alongside two of his former top deputies and the co-chair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP's investigations and enforcement practice.

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Judge Bove Faces Complaint Over Trump Rally Attendance

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. Circuit Judge Emil Bove, who previously served as President Donald Trump's personal defense attorney and a top official at the U.S. Department of Justice, has been hit with a judicial misconduct complaint for his appearance at a Trump event on Tuesday night.

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Akerman Beats Healthcare Cos.' Bid To Escape Fee Suit

By Madison Arnold

Akerman LLP can continue its fees lawsuit against Rennova Health Inc. and other defendants after they lost their motion to dismiss the suit for being "facially time-barred, factually flawed and legally indefensible," a Florida state judge has ruled.

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Fla. Atty Faces Bar Referral Over 'Hallucinated' Case In Filing

By Madison Arnold

A Florida appeals court will refer an attorney to the state's Bar after she filed a brief that included a "hallucinated" case.

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AGs Say Judicial Safety Threats Reaching 'All-Time Highs'

By Matthew Santoni

Attorneys general for 43 states, three territories and the District of Columbia signed a letter to Congress urging more financial support for judicial security in the face of threats against judges, including funding for a program that lets judges scrub addresses and personal information from online databases.

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Disciplined Attys Want High Court's Take On Judge Criticism

By David Minsky

A father-daughter team of attorneys have brought a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging their suspensions for criticizing a Florida state judge who reversed a $2.75 million jury verdict in favor of their client in a racial discrimination lawsuit, saying their comments are protected by the First Amendment. 

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McIver's Immunity Disputed In Detention Center Assault Case

By Elizabeth Daley

Federal prosecutors asked a New Jersey federal judge to maintain all charges against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, who was accused in an indictment of assaulting federal officers outside an immigration detention center during a scrum in which the mayor of Newark was arrested in May.

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Regulate AI With Existing Regs, Financial Industry Lobby Says

By Sarah Jarvis

The Financial Services Institute on Wednesday recommended that regulators apply existing rules and standards to artificial intelligence, saying they should use new rules only when AI brings "genuinely new issues or significantly alters existing risks."

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