WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 7 largely affirmed findings by a California federal judge and a federal jury that a patent-owning technology company failed to show that a defendant entity directly infringed a patent describing camera-assisted parking management technology; however, the panel ordered a new trial on the on-sale bar and a federal unfair competition claim.

WORCESTER, Mass. — A Massachusetts federal judge granted two sunroom construction entities’ motions for summary judgment, finding that a graphic designer’s copyright claims against one of the entities failed because of an implied license to use a brochure she designed; the judge also found the designer failed to establish that the other entity had successor liability.

TRENTON, N.J. — The New Jersey federal judge hearing a fraud case filed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff and Chapter 11 debtor Pecos River Talc LLC against the author of a scientific study on asbestos in talc products told the parties that she intends to grant the debtor relief from her dismissal of the suit and allow it to amend its complaint after the company presented new evidence.

ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 7 held that a 58-month delay in notifying an umbrella insurer of underlying conduct that could have triggered coverage was untimely as a matter law, affirming a lower federal court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the insurer in a direct action lawsuit seeking recovery of a $10 million judgment in an underlying invasion of privacy action.

ATLANTA — The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 6 mostly affirmed summary judgment for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a dispute over alleged deceptive advertising and unfair practices with a company that offers credit cards for fuel purchases and its CEO, finding that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the FTC and granting injunctive relief because requiring the company “not to hide disclosures behind a hyperlink prevents” the company from making the link harder to find.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two days before a scheduled U.S. Supreme Court conference on a certiorari petition that the U.S. government recently filed a consequential amicus curiae brief urging the high court to grant, the parties on Jan. 7 filed a one-paragraph dismissal motion, saying they agreed to each bear their own costs; the petition concerns an issue the high court has passed on several times and asks whether “burden-shifting applies to the element of causation under” part of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

LAS VEGAS — Addressing “an issue of first impression” regarding the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA), the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 6 reversed and remanded a grant of summary judgment that was in favor of a multiemployer pension plan, holding in part “that there is no minimum amount of entertainment work required for an individual to be an ‘employee[] in the entertainment industry’ under the MPPAA.”

BOSTON — Concluding that physicians’ professional groups have sufficiently pleaded that they have been required to “devote significant time and resources” to counseling their members in response to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women so as to confer standing, a Massachusetts federal judge on Jan. 6 denied the government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the groups and three Jane Does seeking to set aside both the CDC’s vaccine recommendation changes and the appointment of new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).