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

Mealey's Intellectual Property

April 23, 2025
Federal Circuit Says Inventor’s Prior Application Anticipates New Application

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on April 22 affirmed a finding by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that a design patent applicant’s submission was anticipated by her earlier utility application.
April 23, 2025
High Court Rejects Fee Petition From Company Liable For Counterfeits

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear arguments from a distribution company and the man who controls it, who argued that the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to uphold the entry of attorney fees against them in a trademark infringement suit; the petitioners were found liable for selling counterfeited beauty products.
April 22, 2025
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Invalidity Challenge In Foreign Damages Patent Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court decided April 21 that it would not hear arguments from the owner of a trading company that argued that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly upheld an Illinois federal judge’s findings of patent invalidity.
April 22, 2025
Anthropic Says AI Copyright Action Too Unwieldy For Class Certification

SAN FRANCISCO — An artificial intelligence copyright class action spans a century, would include more than five million works owned by various people, trusts and other entities and would require the court to decide ownership millions of times over, a company tells a federal judge in California in an opposition to certification. In a separate letter brief, Anthropic PBC tells the court that the plaintiffs were misrepresenting a court’s order and the course and timing of discovery.
April 22, 2025
Motion To Compel Granted In Trademark Row Involving Health Care Fraudster

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — A New York federal magistrate judge on April 21 granted a pharmaceutical company’s motion to compel in a Lanham Act trademark infringement case, seeking documents related to fee arrangement between defense counsel and his client, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud in a related case, finding in part that “the requested information is relevant” because plaintiffs in Lanham Act suits may recover a defendant’s profits.
April 22, 2025
AI Challengers Ask Court To Reconsider Denying Leave To Amend

NEW YORK — The creation of multidistrict litigation governing copyright claims against OpenAI entities warrants reconsideration of a ruling denying leave to amend a complaint so that the consistency and finality goals at the heart of the consolidated litigation are assured, media outlets targeting the removal of copyright management information (CMI) from their works tell a federal judge in New York.
April 22, 2025
Supreme Court Rejects Rehearing Bid For Fees In Photo Copyright Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a rehearing petition from a real estate company sued by a photography company for copyright infringement in which the real estate outfit argued for a final time that it was due attorney fees as the prevailing party in the case after the photography company voluntarily dismissed the infringement suit.
April 21, 2025
Federal Circuit: Machine Learning Patent Invalid As Obvious Per Alice Inquiry

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 18 affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s decision to dismiss a machine learning patent holder’s suit against Fox Corp. and affiliated entities, agreeing with the judge that the patents describe an abstract idea without any additional creation on the patent holder’s part; the panel said the case presented a matter of first impression.
April 21, 2025
Supreme Court Rejects Challenge To Federal Circuit Affirmation Of Patent Judgment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 21 rejected a patent licensing company’s petition for a writ of certiorari, declining to hear arguments from the company that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ignored a genuine dispute of facts in its case with Amazon companies.
April 21, 2025
Xerox Mobile Device Data Patent Invalid As Obvious, Federal Circuit Agrees

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Xerox Corp. failed to overcome a finding of obviousness from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in a series of appeals involving social media entities, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held.
April 18, 2025
Judge Tosses Infringement Claims But Not Inventorship Claim From AT&T Patent Suit

NEW YORK — A federal judge in New York dismissed patent infringement claims brought against two AT&T entities over their use of “twinning” technology that allows one phone number to apply to multiple devices, finding that the patent applies to an inappropriately abstract concept; however, the judge declined to dismiss the plaintiff company’s claim seeking correction of inventorship.
April 18, 2025
Patent Holder Challenged Claim Construction It Sought, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A patent holding company forfeited its argument that a Washington federal judge erred in the construction of a claim phrase in a patent dispute over a network traffic manager patent by failing to bring up the construction argument earlier, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held April 17.
April 17, 2025
Judge Stands By Refusal To Dismiss Chicago Cubs Trademark Claims Against Bar

CHICAGO — An Illinois federal judge told a Chicago rooftop bar and its owner that she would not reconsider a January order denying the bar and owner’s motion to dismiss a trademark infringement complaint brought by the Chicago Cubs Baseball Club LLC; the judge also denied the defendants’ request to stay the case and compel arbitration.
April 17, 2025
Federal Circuit Doesn’t Revive IPR For Wireless Energy Transfer Patent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it held that that multiple claims in a company’s patent related to wireless power transfer were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said April 16, affirming the board’s findings over the objections of the patent holder.
April 16, 2025
Judge Tosses Bone Device Patent Suit, Says Patents Not Properly Enabled

WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal judge in Delaware granted a motion for summary judgment by defendant medical device companies in a patent infringement case, agreeing that the plaintiff company’s patents on portions of an orthopedic medical device are invalid for lack of enablement.
April 16, 2025
Federal Circuit Rejects Rehearing Bid In LED Patent Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 15 rejected a patent holder’s petition for panel or en banc rehearing after a panel of judges in January held there was no error in the findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that claims of the company’s patent were invalid as obvious; the appeals court will not hear arguments from the company that the panel wrongly considered an “abandoned patent application” in affirming PTAB’s findings.
April 16, 2025
Federal Circuit: Skin Sterilizer Patent Anticipated By Prior Art; No PTAB Error

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Patents covering a company’s skin disinfecting product were rightly held by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to be unpatentable as anticipated by prior art, a panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held April 15; the panel said that substantial evidence supported PTAB’s findings.
April 16, 2025
6th Circuit: No Coverage Owed For Trademark Infringement Suit Against Pharmacy

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower federal court’s summary judgment ruling in favor of insurers in a pharmacist insured’s breach of contract lawsuit seeking coverage for underlying trademark infringement and false advertising claims brought by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, finding that one policy’s professional services exclusion barred coverage and the other policy was not triggered because the underlying lawsuit was not brought by “natural persons.”
April 16, 2025
Applicants’ Similar Foreign Patent Makes Application Obvious, Federal Circuit Says

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected arguments from patent applicants who appealed the denial of their patent application related to fluid catalytic cracking; the panel said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) rightly held the application to be invalid as obvious.
April 15, 2025
Groupon In Rehearing Bid: Federal Circuit Opinion Negates Purpose Of IPR Process

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a petition for rehearing, Groupon Inc. says a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel erred when it held that a patent holder was not estopped from asserting infringement claims against Groupon in a Delaware federal court based on previous decisions by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); Groupon says the panel ignored precedent in the circuit.
April 15, 2025
Federal Circuit Rejects Appeal Of Man’s Challenge To Football Team’s Royal Mark

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Vermont man who sought to cancel the New Orleans Louisiana Saints LLC’s trademark on a fleur-de-lis design lacked standing to appeal the dismissal of his petition, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said April 14.
April 15, 2025
Brewer Can’t Use ‘Chicken Scratch’ For Beer, Federal Circuit Affirms

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A brewing company cannot use the mark “Chicken Scratch” in connection with beer after a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on April 14 affirmed a U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) decision rejecting the company’s application for a trademark registration; the panel said the TTAB did not err when analyzing the proposed mark’s similarity to a restaurant company’s mark on the same phrase.
April 11, 2025
Coders Push Back On DMCA Identicality Ruling In AI Case

OAKLAND, Calif. — The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) does not impose a requirement that distributed works be identical to the protected work and even if it did, allegations that Microsoft Corp. and OpenAI entities removed copyright management information and used exact copies of the works to train artificial intelligence would meet the standard, two coders tell the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in an opening brief.
April 11, 2025
Federal Circuit Agrees SAP Can’t Transfer Patent Case To Other Federal Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 10 denied a software company’s petition for a writ of mandamus compelling the transfer of a patent suit from one division of a Texas federal district court to another division in the same district, holding that the company failed to show that a federal judge’s decision to deny the transfer motion was not “patently erroneous.”
April 11, 2025
Patent Holder To High Court: Federal Circuit Wrong To Scrap Its Jury Win

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A software company patent holder tells the U.S. Supreme Court that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was wrong to vacate a jury’s verdict of $13.2 million in damages; the company says in its petition for certiorari that a Texas federal judge was right in the first place to deny judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of no direct infringement on the respondent company’s part.