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SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 8 affirmed a district court order granting Apple Inc.’s motion for summary judgment on claims that it violated federal antitrust law and California’s unfair competition law (UCL) by impairing a competitor’s heart rate tracking app tailored for the Apple Watch to monopolize the market, finding that Apple’s refusal to share algorithm data with third-party app developers was considered a “refusal to deal” and the competitor failed to show an exception to the antitrust principle that there is no duty to deal.
BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment issued in favor of property owners, holding that a state statute prohibits a homeowners association from enforcing a short-term rental restriction adopted without the property owners’ express written consent and rejecting the association’s argument that the restriction later bound subsequent purchasers; the Idaho high court also declined to award attorney fees to either party after determining the appeal raised an issue of first impression and was not frivolous.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) did not abuse its discretion by granting a limited exclusion order (LEO) and not a general exclusion order (GEO) to Crocs Inc. against defaulting respondents the company accused of importing products that infringed or diluted trademarks related to its shoes, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 8.
PHOENIX — An expert retained by a plaintiff in a product liability case to prove causation was properly excluded under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 after the district court judge found his testimony to be unreliable, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Jan. 8, affirming a summary judgment award for the manufacturer of a portable camping fire device.
NEW YORK — Pushing back on a recent request by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to withdraw a December 2023 amicus curiae brief in an appeal involving whether the “could have” standard used in damages instructions is grounds for overturning judgment in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action that went before a jury, retirement plan participants on Jan. 8 urged the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to deny the request because “DOL fails to provide any logical basis, let alone reasoned analysis, for abandoning the persuasive argument in its amicus brief.”
PASADENA, Calif. — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed in part a lower court’s dismissal of an investor’s class action against a digital experience platform, certain executives and directors, and underwriters for allegedly providing misleading statements in its public offering documents, finding that the complaint contained plausible allegations.
SAN FRANCISCO — Almost exactly six months after the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) first filed an amicus curiae brief in the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals supporting a retirement plan against plan participants’ efforts to revive their putative class action challenging a common use of forfeited nonvested matching retirement contributions, the agency on Jan. 8 did the same in one of the three similar appeals also pending in the Ninth Circuit.
CONCORD, N.H. — A gender dysphoria expert retained by a transgender woman suing her employer for refusing to provide her with health insurance coverage for gender-affirming care can testify in the woman’s discrimination case, a New Hampshire federal judge ruled Jan. 7.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Substantial evidence supported a finding by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims in a patent describing a system for error correction in flash memory devices were invalid as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in a nonprecedential Jan. 7 opinion.
HELENA, Mont. — Concluding that the state of Montana did not meet the criteria necessary to seek the “extraordinary remedy” of a writ of supervisory control, the Montana Supreme Court denied the state’s petition that it filed in response to a trial court’s order compelling it to comply with a conservationist organization’s requests for production (RFPs) of documents related to the passage of a state law over single-use plastics.
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.