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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • June 02, 2023

    6th Circuit: No Coverage Owed For False Advertising Suit Against Coffee Company

    CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 1 affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of primary and umbrella commercial liability insurers in a coverage dispute arising from underlying false advertising claims brough by Hawaii coffee growers against a coffee company insured, finding that there was no coverage triggered under the policies’ disparagement and slogan infringement provisions.

  • June 02, 2023

    Industry Orgs Back Music Publishers In High Court Direct Copyright Liability Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The day after the Motion Picture Association Inc. (MPA) filed an amicus curiae brief supporting a petition for certiorari by a group of music publishers, a coalition of three music industry associations teamed up on another amicus brief, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify whether direct copyright liability rests solely on the individual that “presses the button” to make infringing copies of a copyrighted work or also on the party who directs or authorizes such infringing activity.

  • June 01, 2023

    Publishers Ask Supreme Court To Resolve Limitations Period For Copyright Damages

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Presenting what they call “an obvious candidate” for certiorari, two music publishers ask the U.S. Supreme Court to provide guidance on whether the three-year statute of limitations period in the Copyright Act limits whether a plaintiff can seek damages under the discovery accrual rule for damages sustained more than three years before a complaint was filed.

  • June 01, 2023

    DOJ:  Lyrics Website’s Copyright Claims Preempted; Certiorari Should Be Denied

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — State law contractual claims brought by a song lyrics website operator against Google LLC are indistinguishable from federal copyright infringement claims and are, therefore, precluded by Section 301(a) of the Copyright Act, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) argues in an amicus curiae brief in which it recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court deny the company’s petition for certiorari in which it seeks clarification on application of the statute.

  • May 22, 2023

    COMMENTARY: Intellectual Property Legal Issues Impacting Artificial Intelligence

    By Edward D. Lanquist and Dominic Rota

  • May 31, 2023

    United States:  Apple, Broadcom Petition In Coding Patent Row Should Be Denied

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an amicus curiae brief, the U.S. solicitor general (SG), on behalf of the United States, recommends that the U.S. Supreme Court deny a petition for certiorari fled by Apple Inc. and Broadcom Inc., opining that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals correctly found that the petitioners were estopped from pursuing patent invalidity claims because they did not raise them during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, although they could have.

  • May 31, 2023

    Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB’s IPR Ruling Against Medtronic Over Catheter Patents

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Affirming an inter partes review (IPR) ruling by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority found that Medtronic Inc. did not establish that catheter guide patents in suit are unpatentable, agreeing with the board’s rejection of asserted prior art and its conclusion that a broader intended purpose for the patents was consistent with expert and inventor testimony.

  • May 31, 2023

    Vietnamese App Maker Denied Certiorari For Website Jurisdiction Issue

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Vietnamese music app creator will have to face copyright infringement claims brought against it by a music distributor because the U.S. Supreme Court denied the company’s petition for certiorari in its May 30 order list, declining to weigh in on a question of when a website can confer jurisdiction over a foreign party.

  • May 30, 2023

    Supreme Court Won’t Hear Suit Over Section 101 Patent Eligibility Criteria

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A dispute over the eligibility of a patent pertaining to radio frequency identification (RFID) technology under Section 101 of the Patent Act will not be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied a petition for certiorari in its May 30 order list that asked the court to consider whether subdividing serial numbers served to make an invention patent-eligible subject matter.

  • May 26, 2023

    Sellers Of Disposable Vapes Ask 6th Circuit To Review Injunction In Trademark Row

    CINCINNATI — A distributor of disposable e-cigarette products and several retailers on May 25 filed a notice of interlocutory appeal to the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals seeking to challenge a district court’s ruling preliminarily enjoining them from sales of vapes with a mark “remarkably similar” to a trademark-holder’s without requiring the trademark-holder to post a $1.8 million bond for their alleged future lost sales.

  • May 24, 2023

    Judge Denies TRO Sought By Reptile Show For UCL, Trademark Claims

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal judge denied a reptile exhibitor’s ex parte application for a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring a rival reptile show host from continuing to operate using a logo the applicant says violates its registered trademark, with the judge finding that the applicant waited too long after learning of the alleged violation to claim that it is at risk of irreparable harm.

  • May 24, 2023

    2nd Circuit Affirms: Models’ False Endorsement Claims Foreclosed By Electra

    NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed summary judgment for the operators of a gentlemen’s club that used images of models in social media posts without their permission, rejecting the models’ argument that the lower court “misstepped by treating recognizability as the ‘bottom line’ barometer for strength of mark in false endorsement claims” under the Lanham Act.

  • May 22, 2023

    Certiorari Denied In 2 Cases Questioning Authority For Temporary PTO Appointments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two patent infringement suits that were previously before the U.S. Supreme Court in a dispute over the appointment of administrative patent judges (APJs) by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) were both denied certiorari on May 22 on another appointment matter, this one pertaining to temporary appointment of government officials when a PTO position is vacant per the Federal Vacancies Reform Act (FVRA).

  • May 22, 2023

    Federal Magistrate Judge Weighs In On IV Drip Therapy Trademark Row

    AUSTIN, Texas — A federal magistrate judge in Texas recommended that a motion to dismiss trademark infringement allegations be denied in a dispute over the use of “ThrIVe” in connection with intravenous drip therapy.

  • May 22, 2023

    Board Won’t Review Patented System, Method For Remote Check Deposit

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Allegations by a bank that prior art renders obvious a patent relating to a remote check deposit system and method that enables quicker access to a check’s funds have been rejected by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

  • May 19, 2023

    Dispute Over Hendrix Catalog Ownership Stayed In New York

    NEW YORK — Litigation in England will proceed before a New York court weighs in on a declaratory judgment action over releases purportedly signed by two individuals who now assert copyright ownership in sound recordings by the late Jimi Hendrix, a federal judge in New York has ruled.

  • May 19, 2023

    ITC Correctly Construed Patent Limitation, Federal Circuit Affirms

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Regents of the University of California have failed to persuade the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to undo a determination by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that myriad lighting retailers do not infringe two university patents.

  • May 18, 2023

    Relief Entered In Cirque Du Soleil Copyright Case Vacated By 9th Circuit

    SAN FRANCISCO — An injunction entered by a Nevada federal judge in a choreography copyright infringement action by two brothers who were replaced in the Cirque du Soleil by two sisters following the COVID-19 pandemic must be revisited, according to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • May 18, 2023

    U.S. High Court Endorses Federal Circuit Enablement Standard

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on May 18 affirmed trial court and circuit court rulings that two Amgen Inc. patents on anti-cholesterol antibodies are not sufficiently enabled because they seek to cover “potentially millions” of antigens that they do not claim.

  • May 18, 2023

    Telecomm Co. To Board: Bandwidth Allocation Patent Is Novel, Nonobvious

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — In a preliminary patent owner response, Corrigent Corp. maintains that its patented system that determines bandwidth needs, maps logistical network topology to physical network topology and allocates the bandwidth accordingly should not be subjected to inter partes review (IPR) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.