Intellectual Property

  • December 10, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB Ruling That Wireless Tech IP Is Invalid

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday backed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that a mobile communications patent owned by a unit of European patent-licensing company Sisvel was invalid, handing a win to challengers, including Honeywell International and Sierra Wireless.

  • December 10, 2024

    Eli Lilly Says Tampa Health Biz Can't 'Pass The Buck' In TM Suit

    Eli Lilly and Co. is asking a Florida federal judge not to throw out its claims that a Tampa Bay company falsely advertised that it offered Eli Lilly diabetes and obesity medications, saying it can't "pass the buck" to a co-defendant that owned the website that advertised its services.

  • December 10, 2024

    Labcorp Accuses Ex-Sales Exec Of Stealing Customers

    Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings took its former sales marketing executive to North Carolina federal court, along with his new employer, claiming that the worker has been violating his noncompete and nonsolicitation agreements by poaching Labcorp's customers and using its confidential information against it.

  • December 10, 2024

    Crown Packaging Can Patents Ruled Invalid In Reversal

    The Federal Circuit ruled Tuesday that a series of Crown Packaging's patents on a machine that produces aluminum beverage cans is invalid, the latest in a case where a federal jury found that rival Belvac Production Machinery Inc. did not infringe the patents.

  • December 10, 2024

    BioNTech, Pfizer Rival Wants Party Flip In COVID Vax IP Fight

    German biotech company CureVac asked a Virginia federal judge to flip the positions of the litigants in its COVID-19 vaccine patent fight with rivals Pfizer and BioNTech, saying the case had morphed into an infringement suit involving 10 CureVac patents.

  • December 09, 2024

    Judge Newman Says Fed. Circ. Threatened Her To Seal Filings

    U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman asked the D.C. Circuit Monday to unseal supplemental documents attached to her opening brief arguing that the suspension her colleagues have imposed on her for refusing to participate in an investigation into her fitness to serve as a Federal Circuit judge was unconstitutional.

  • December 09, 2024

    Jones Says Waiver Gave Onion Unfair Edge In Infowars Auction

    Lawyers for Alex Jones on Monday stepped up their criticism of satirical news outlet The Onion's bid to buy the conspiracy theorist's Infowars website, urging a Texas bankruptcy judge to block the deal and hand Infowars to a company operating a supplements website instead.

  • December 09, 2024

    Intellia Can't Escape Patent Suit Over $100M Regeneron Deal

    Biotechnology company Intellia Therapeutics cannot ditch BlueAllele's claims that it infringed three patents related to gene editing to reap over $100 million under a deal with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled Monday, saying BlueAllele has plausibly alleged its rival is not entitled to drug-development safe harbor.

  • December 09, 2024

    Bill Aiding Not-So-Small Patent Applicants Advances

    A federal measure that would allow patent applicants to avoid financial penalties for incorrectly seeking reduced fees for small applicants has made its way to President Joe Biden's desk.

  • December 09, 2024

    Blockchain Co. IP Fight With Investment Firm Teed Up For Trial

    A California federal judge has said a jury should decide whether the investment firm Franklin Templeton misappropriated trade secrets of Blockchain Innovation LLC and breached its fiduciary duty and contract with the firm when it shut down a digital asset startup that Blockchain later acquired.

  • December 09, 2024

    O'Melveny Faces DQ Effort In Hyundai TM Dispute

    An attorney defending computing company Hyundai Technology in its trademark dispute with Hyundai Motor Co. told a California federal judge Monday that O'Melveny & Myers LLP should be disqualified from representing the automotive giant because it retained and used a privileged document that was inadvertently shared in discovery.

  • December 09, 2024

    Campbell's Accuses Rival Of Copying Iconic Can Design

    The Campbell's Co. is accusing a competitor of copying the soup giant's "famous and iconic" can design, claiming in a New Jersey federal court complaint that the other company intentionally leveraged the mimicry to its benefit.

  • December 09, 2024

    Condom Co. Says Rival Owes $744K In 'Naked' IP Dispute

    A U.S.-based condom company told a Florida federal judge during a bench trial on Monday that an Australian rival owes at least $744,000 in attorney fees after losing in a dispute over use of the trademark "naked," saying the two had made a formal agreement but didn't memorialize it in writing.

  • December 09, 2024

    Verizon, Ericsson Agree To Settle Co.'s Wireless IP Row In EDTX

    Verizon Wireless and Ericsson have agreed to a deal that will end a suit accusing them of infringing a pair of wireless network patents owned by a Dallas patent business, a move that came after the first day of a retrial in the case.

  • December 09, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Backs Priceline, Booking's Patent Case Win

    The Federal Circuit on Monday backed a Delaware federal court's ruling that Priceline.com LLC and Booking.com did not infringe an e-commerce patent, agreeing with how a judge construed key claim terms.

  • December 09, 2024

    Ga. Attys Urge Companies To Develop Generative AI Policies

    Companies need to develop policies mitigating the effects of generative artificial intelligence as the tool is already impacting contracts and other aspects of business across nearly every industry, attorneys said Monday at a State Bar of Georgia panel.

  • December 09, 2024

    Boies Schiller Adds 2 Litigators In New York, San Francisco

    Boies Schiller Flexner LLP has hired two litigators for its New York and San Francisco offices, the firm announced Monday.

  • December 09, 2024

    MLB Can't Duck Digital Ticket IP Suit Despite Plaintiff Swap

    A New York federal judge declined to toss a digital ticketing patent holder's amended infringement complaint against Major League Baseball's interactive division, reasoning that the complaint was still valid even though the inventor substituted his company as the plaintiff.

  • December 09, 2024

    Pa. Fudge Maker Seeks Atty Fees In 'Moonshine' TM Fight

    Even though a Pennsylvania jury had found that Local Yokels Fudge and Christopher Warman's ex-wife had copied his secret "Chocolate Moonshine" fudge recipe, the defendants want Warman to pay some of their legal bills because they say he made frivolous trademark claims and falsely claimed they were still using the recipe after the 2023 trial.

  • December 09, 2024

    Anti-China Bias Tainted ADI Trade Secrets Case, 1st Circ. Told

    A former Analog Devices Inc. microchip engineer convicted of pilfering valuable design schematics to launch a competing business has told the First Circuit the government singled him out for prosecution due to his Chinese ethnicity and investigators' hopes he would turn out to be a foreign spy.

  • December 09, 2024

    High Court Won't Hear Zimmer Biomet Royalties Fight

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday shot down Zimmer Biomet Holdings' challenge to the Seventh Circuit's finding that the company shouldn't have stopped paying royalties on knee replacement devices it developed using an orthopedic surgeon's various patents after those patents expired.

  • December 07, 2024

    Up Next: Environmental Reviews, Wire Fraud & TM Awards

    The U.S. Supreme Court will hear its final set of oral arguments for the 2024 calendar year starting Monday, including disputes over the proper scope of federal environmental reviews and whether corporate affiliates can be ordered to pay disgorgement awards in trademark infringement disputes.

  • December 06, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Dissects Role of Corrected IP In Construction PGR

    A Federal Circuit panel on Friday worked through whether the Patent Trial and Appeal Board had blocked a patent challenger from raising concerns about the validity of claims corrected during a post-grant review, and whether the corrected claims could be addressed in district court.

  • December 06, 2024

    Galderma Can't Undo Lupin's Skin Drug Win At Fed. Circ.

    Federal Circuit judges on Friday upheld a bench trial finding earlier this year that allowed an Indian generic-drug maker to start selling a treatment for a chronic skin condition that competes with a brand developed by Swiss skin care giant Galderma.

  • December 06, 2024

    High Court To Weigh $47M TM Award Liability For Non-Parties

    A trademark case before the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday will delve into whether corporate affiliates of a real estate development company should be liable for an infringement judgment of nearly $47 million, even though they were not named defendants in the litigation.

Expert Analysis

  • Nutraceutical Patent Do's And Don'ts As Market Heats Up

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    Companies entering the expanding nutraceutical market and seeking patents to protect their innovations should evaluate successful nutraceutical claim language and common patent challenges in this field, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.

  • Firms Still Have The Edge In Lateral Hiring, But Buyer Beware

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    Partner mobility data suggests that the third quarter of this year continued to be a buyer’s market, with the average candidate demanding less compensation for a larger book of business — but moving into the fourth quarter, firms should slow down their hiring process to minimize risks, say officers at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.

  • Nintendo Suit May Have Major Impact On Video Game Patents

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    If Nintendo and The Pokémon Co. win their patent infringement case in Japan against Pocketpair, the game developer behind Palworld, it could pose new challenges for independent game creators — but it could also encourage innovation, says Charles Morris at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Teaching Your Witness To Beat The Freeze/Appease Response

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    In addition to fight-or-flight, witnesses may experience the freeze/appease response at trial or deposition — where they become a deer in headlights, agreeing with opposing counsel’s questions and damaging their credibility in the process — but certain strategies can help, says Bill Kanasky at Courtroom Sciences.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: 1 Type Of Case Complexity Stands Out

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    In contrast to some cases that appear complex due to voluminous evidence or esoteric subject matter, a different kind of complexity involves tangled legal and factual questions, each with a range of possible outcomes, which require a “sliding scale” approach instead of syllogistic reasoning, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Netflix Dispute May Alter 'Source' In TM Fair-Use Analysis

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    ​The Ninth Circuit’s upcoming decision in Hara v. Netflix​, about what it means to be source-identifying​, could change how the Rogers defense protects expressive works that utilize trademarks in a creative fashion, says Sara Gold at Gold IP.

  • Fed. Circ. Ruling Shows Importance Of Trial Expert Specificity

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    The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in NexStep v. Comcast highlights how even a persuasive expert’s failure to fully explain the basis of their opinion at trial can turn a winning patent infringement argument into a losing one, say attorneys at Barnes & Thornburg.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Note 3 Simple Types Of Legal Complexity

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    Cases can appear complex for several reasons — due to the number of issues, the volume of factual and evidentiary sources, and the sophistication of those sources — but the same basic technique can help lawyers tame their arguments into a simple and persuasive message, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Corporate Liability Issues To Watch In High Court TM Case

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    The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a trademark dispute between Dewberry Group and Dewberry Engineers next week, presenting an opportunity for the court to drastically alter the fundamental approach to piercing the corporate veil, or adopt a more limited approach and preserve existing norms, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • Trending At The PTAB: Collateral Estoppel Continues Evolving

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    We are starting to see brighter lines on collateral estoppel involving Patent Trial and Appeal Board proceedings, illustrated by two recent cases that considered whether collateral estoppel should apply to factual findings on prior art from the PTAB in a later district court litigation, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • Series

    Gardening Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Beyond its practical and therapeutic benefits, gardening has bolstered important attributes that also apply to my litigation practice, including persistence, patience, grit and authenticity, says Christopher Viceconte at Gibbons.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Reframing Document Review

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    For attorneys — new ones especially — there is much fulfillment to find in document review by reflecting on how important, interesting and pleasant it can be, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • What Fed. Circ. Ruling Means For Patent Case Dismissals

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    ​​​​​​​The Federal Circuit's recent decision in UTTO v. Metrotech is significant because it specifically authorizes district courts to dismiss patent infringement lawsuits without a separate Markman hearing, but only when the meaning of a claim term is clear and case-dispositive, says Peter Gergely at Merchant & Gould.

  • The Fed. Circ. In October: Anti-Suit Injunctions And SEPs

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    The Federal Circuit's holding in Ericsson v. Lenovo, a complex global case involving standard-essential patents, will likely have broad consequences for practitioners, including by making it easier to obtain an anti-suit injunction, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Declaring Unexpected Results: Pitfalls For Rule 132 At PTAB

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    Rule 132 declarations are frequently used in life sciences patent prosecution for rebutting obviousness rejections by establishing that an applicant's invention produces unexpected results, and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's Eidschun ruling highlights when this important tool may be ineffective, say attorneys at Morrison Foerster.

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