Mealey's Intellectual Property : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Intellectual Property

March 14, 2024
Subpoena For Deposition In Trademark Opposition Will Stay Quashed, Panel Rules

RICHMOND, Va. — Although with a different rationale than the one espoused by a Virginia federal judge, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 13 upheld an order that quashed a subpoena issued to a foreign entity in opposition proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
March 14, 2024
Designer, PTO Argue If Vulgar Word Was Properly Denied Trademark Registration

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An artist and designer who had four trademark registrations for a vulgar word denied by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) tells the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in his reply brief that the agency inappropriately relied on newly created doctrines regarding commonly used words in rejecting his applications, despite the fact that many other commonly used words have been used as trademarks.
March 13, 2024
Petitioner To Board: Patent Owner Should Be Sanctioned For Discovery Abuses

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In a March 12 motion to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, petitioners for inter partes review (IPR) seek an order barring a patent owner from arguing that the commercial success of its WeatherTech vehicle floor liner products — and related praise that the floor mats have received in the automobile industry — supports a finding of nonobviousness.
March 13, 2024
Per Gucci, Jury Demand In New York Federal Trade Dress Row Stricken

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A trade dress dispute between two ice cream makers will proceed but not before jurors because a request for disgorged profits is equitable in nature and thus will be decided at a bench trial, a federal judge in New York has ruled.
March 13, 2024
Board Grants Post-Grant Review Of Honeywell Aircraft Tracking Patent

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A petition for post-grant review (PGR) will likely prevail on at least one of its three challenges to a Honeywell International Inc. patent directed to “systems for detecting, tracking, and docking aircraft in a taxiway, apron, or ramp area of an airport,” including that the process claimed by the patentee can be performed by the human mind, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has ruled.
March 12, 2024
Colorado Federal Judge: App Store Notices Not Enough For Jurisdiction

DENVER — A Colorado-based business on March 11 saw its infringement complaint dismissed without prejudice by a federal judge in Colorado, who said trademark notices sent by defendants to the Apple and Google app stores did not rise to the level of “express aiming” at the state.
March 12, 2024
Crocs Must Face Defamation Claims In Colorado Over Patent Press Release

DENVER — Allegations by a Canadian shoe seller and former patent infringement defendant that it was defamed in a press release by Crocs Inc. that touted a settlement of their longstanding litigation as a “judgment of infringement” were deemed plausible on March 11 by a federal judge in Colorado.
March 12, 2024
ISP Asks 4th Circuit To Rehear ‘Exceptionally Important’ Secondary Liability Suit

RICHMOND, Va. — Filing an amicus curiae brief on March 11 in support of fellow internet service provider (ISP) Cox Communications Inc.’s quest for rehearing in an appeal where it was found liable for contributory infringement for its subscribers’ file-sharing activities, Frontier Communications Parent Inc. tells the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a panel’s holding on copyright liability for merely providing internet service that is misused by customers “drives a wrecking ball through the ordinary limits of secondary liability in direct conflict with [U.S.] Supreme Court precedent.”
March 11, 2024
Board Issues New Ground Of Rejection For Proposed ‘Medical Avatar’ Patent

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Patent Trial and Appeal Board on March 11 disagreed with an examiner that all 21 claims of an application to patent a “method of using a simulation of a patient’s anatomy for engaging the patient” are anticipated by an application to patent a “medical avatar” but said that three of those claims are nonetheless rendered obvious by the same reference.
March 11, 2024
Judge Amends Consent Decree Order In Case Over Alleged Counterfeit Policies

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — In a March 8 amended ruling entering a consent decree in a sprawling suit over allegations of fraud, trademark counterfeiting and trademark infringement involving captive reinsurance programs, a Kentucky federal judge said he “inadvertently omitted the names of two parties.”
March 11, 2024
Nvidia’s NeMo Megatron AI Latest LLM Targeted With Copyright Suit

SAN FRANCISCO — Nvidia Corp. trained its NeMo Megatron artificial intelligence with 20 billion “weights” derived from an enormous amount of copyrighted and otherwise protected material, a trio of authors claims in a March 8 California federal class action targeting large language model (LLM) training methods.
March 11, 2024
Patent Owner Wins Interest, But No Enhancement Of $42M Jury Award

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge in Minnesota on March 8 denied a bid by the owner of a lighted artificial tree patent for enhanced damages after its win at trial in January.
March 11, 2024
Nevada Federal Judge Modifies Injunction After Finding Mark Use Not Fair

LAS VEGAS — On the heels of concluding, upon reconsideration, that a defendant did not fairly use “TASER” in connection with its conducted-energy weapon (CEW) refurbishing business, a federal judge in Nevada on March 8 modified her earlier permanent injunction.
March 11, 2024
Copyright Office Calls Human Authorship ‘Basic Prerequisite’ In AI Copyright Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An artificial intelligence developer has not established any reason why the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should “upend . . . well-established principles” that “nonhuman authors are not entitled to copyright protection,” the U.S. Copyright Office argues in an appellee brief, asking the court to find that a trial court properly upheld the office’s refusal to issue a copyright for a work of art to an AI machine.
March 11, 2024
Judge Won’t Overturn Jury’s $2.3M Verdict In Tobacco Rolling Papers Dispute

ATLANTA — A Georgia federal judge denied two defense motions asking the court to deem excessive or reduce a $2.3 million jury verdict against them for trademark infringement against a rolling papers company and order a new trial, finding that the jury properly weighed the evidence and that its verdict was proper.
March 08, 2024
Pa. Federal Judge Rejects 2nd, 9th Circuit Standard For Joint Authorship Intent

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Because it remains unclear whether a settlement agreement extends to a plaintiff’s original design for a dragon-themed boot button that, while proven to be a joint work, still may not encompass an accused “simplified, two-dimensional rendering” by an infringement defendant, a Pennsylvania federal judge largely denied summary judgment.
March 08, 2024
Trade Secret Disclosed In Patent Is Public Knowledge, Interlocutory Appellant Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In corrected opening and response briefs in an interlocutory appeal of a Massachusetts federal judge’s preliminary injunction, two makers of competing insulin patch pumps square off on several issues including whether purported trade secrets were made public in filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).
March 08, 2024
Panel Rejects Finding That Patent Limitations Are Contradictory, Indefinite

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The owner of a patented rechargeable lithium-ion battery has won reinstatement of infringement litigation against a competitor by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled that a federal judge in Texas wrongly declared claim language indefinite.
March 07, 2024
Petitioner Seeks Burden Shift For Rule 105 Requests During Patent Prosecution

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Crossing the “PH1VNA” and “PH1D84” corn varieties to arrive at a newly claimed “1PFHC43” corn variety was “well within the level of skill for a person of ordinary skill” in 2021, the effective date of a patent issued in 2023 to Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., a competitor tells the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in a March 6 petition for covered business method (CBM) review.
March 07, 2024
Fee Award Slashed, But Dismissal Of Lanham Act, Copyright Claims Upheld

SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 6 did not reach allegations by two appellants that the “idea-expression dichotomy” under federal copyright law is unconstitutional, deeming the position waived in view of their failure to raise it before an Oregon federal magistrate judge.
March 07, 2024
Apple, Corephotonics Jointly Move To Terminate Multiple Inter Partes Reviews

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — On remand from the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, Apple Inc. and Corephotonics Inc. have reached a confidential settlement and jointly moved March 6 to terminate five inter partes reviews (IPRs) pending before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
March 07, 2024
X Corp. Wins Dismissal Of Most, But Not All, Copyright Claims By Music Industry

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge in Tennessee dismissed allegations that X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, directly and vicariously infringes copyrighted musical works and partly dismissed allegations of contributory infringement but said a subset of the latter claim will go forward, in view of plausible evidence that the social media giant does not go far enough to police infringement on its platform in certain situations.
March 07, 2024
Summary Judgment That Graco Baby Swing Doesn’t Infringe Patent Will Stand

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A bid by an inventor to overturn a California federal judge’s finding that Graco Inc. and its parent company do not infringe a patented infant soothing device failed March 6, with a summary affirmance by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
March 06, 2024
IBM Largely Loses Appeal In Clash With Chewy Over Online Advertising Patents

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An appeal by International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) of a New York federal judge’s summary judgment of patent noninfringement and ineligibility was partly successful March 5 when the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said Chewy Inc. must face allegations that it infringed a single claim of a patent directed to online advertising.
March 06, 2024
YouTube Video Of Waffle Sandwich Dooms Design Patent Plans, Panel Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Efforts by two inventors to patent an ornamental design for a waffle featuring one smooth side were properly rejected as anticipated by a widely disseminated video on YouTube, the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said March 6; in a separate opinion issued the same day, the same panel upheld a rejection of a similar utility patent application, this time on obviousness grounds.