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MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A federal judge in Alabama on March 13 granted a cancer advocacy group’s motion for a temporary restraining order against the former president of its board of directors and the company she controls, enjoining the defendants from using trademarks related to the phrase “Women in Blue” in connection with a fundraising initiative.
SEATTLE — A spokesman for Monsanto Co. on March 13 confirmed that the company has reached confidential settlements to resolve several long-running state court lawsuits against the company by various plaintiffs who alleged that they were injured from exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the Sky Valley Education Center (SVEC) near Seattle. The spokesman said the company’s payment of $1 million in sanctions related to the case at hand was paid to resolve the suit even though Monsanto does not agree with the sanctions decision.
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 12 affirmed in part and vacated in part a lower court’s preliminary injunction enjoining the enforcement of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA) in a suit filed by a trade association of online businesses challenging the CAADCA, which was enacted to provide online privacy protections for children under 18, affirming the injunction regarding the act’s data use and dark patterns restrictions after finding that those provisions do not clearly describe the prohibited conduct.
LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge granted a plaintiff’s motion to stay a $623,000 attorney fee sanction against her attorneys for allegedly bringing a frivolous suit against Walmart Inc. pending the outcome of their petition for a writ of mandamus before the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on the condition that the plaintiff post a supersedeas bond in the full amount of the sanctions.
BOSTON — A Massachusetts Appeals Court panel on March 13 vacated due to improper jury instructions a state court jury’s defense verdict rejecting all claims against a tobacco company brought by the widower of a smoker who started smoking around age 10 and died at age 65 from lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
ATLANTA — A Georgia appeals panel on March 12 affirmed a lower court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of a boat manufacturer insured in its lawsuit alleging that its insurers acted in bad faith for failing to settle an underlying action arising from a boating accident that killed a 7-year-old boy, holding that the record evidence established that the primary insurer was at all times responsible for the insured’s defense and never tendered its policy limits to the insured.
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel saw no abuse of discretion in a New York federal judge’s finding that the owner of a South Asian film festival in New York was unlikely to succeed on trademark claims against the owner of a South Asian film festival in both Texas and New York, affirming the judge’s decision to deny a preliminary injunction.
BALTIMORE — A Maryland federal judge on March 12 ordered a case brought by the family of Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose medical tissue was taken without her consent in 1951 to create the first immortalized human cell line that has been used in medical developments from the polio vaccine to in vitro fertilization, to be closed after signing off on a joint stipulation to dismiss the remaining defendants with prejudice
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a judgment of infringement against the makers of the Norton antivirus software, holding that a Virginia federal judge wrongly held that the patents at issue are not directed at an abstract idea; the panel also reversed the judge’s entry of sanctions against the software company’s counsel at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP for failing to comply with an order compelling it to disclose allegedly privileged information it received from a former employee of the software company the firm also represented.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia federal judge on March 11 granted the U.S. government’s motion for default judgment and ordered forfeiture to the government of now-frozen cryptocurrency allegedly stolen by North Korean hackers, finding that the cryptocurrency is considered the proceeds of computer fraud and subject to forfeiture in this case where the government correctly provided notice.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California federal judge on March 11 granted a motion by Home Depot Inc. (HD) to dismiss a putative class action lawsuit against it for allegedly violating California’s unfair competition law (UCL) and other laws by mislabeling its Christmas lights in a manner that a consumer says rendered the products defective.