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December 03, 2025
SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge denied video game emulation software developers’ motion to reconsider a decision to grant a video game publisher’s request for a preliminary injunction in a dispute over trademarks and copyrights related to the video game EverQuest, finding that the defendants “essentially argue the Court was wrong in its decision” without further evidence.
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December 02, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec. 1 from an internet service provider (ISP) that contends that it can be found liable for customers’ copyright infringement through piracy only if it committed a culpable act, while a group of record labels and music publishers told the justices that the ISP’s continuous providing of service to internet protocol (IP) addresses of known infringers constitutes liability under the material contribution standard.
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December 02, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel once again ruled against a technology company on Dec. 1, affirming a finding of the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of the company’s patent describing a handheld device using a camera to receive gesture-based inputs are invalid as anticipated; the panel also dismissed the company’s appeal in part related to other patent claims that the appellate court had already held to be invalid.
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December 01, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court issued an order on Nov. 26 deferring until two other cases are decided an application by President Donald J. Trump and others to stay an interlocutory injunction in a case over the president’s ability to remove Shira Perlmutter from her position as the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office.
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December 01, 2025
CAMDEN, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge granted summary judgment to the hotel company behind Econo Lodge, finding that the undisputed record showed that holdover franchisees continued to use trademarks related to the brand years after the termination of a franchise agreement, ordering the defendant entities to pay just short of $1.4 million in monetary damages, disgorgement and costs.
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November 26, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — One day after distributing a case for conference, the U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 26 asked for a response from the federal government in a case in which a man claims that lower courts erred by finding that his artificial intelligence-generated artwork was not entitled to copyright protections. The man previously asked the court to stay the case while courts decide whether Shira Perlmutter can continue to serve as head of the U.S. Copyright Office.
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November 26, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 25 affirmed a California federal judge’s finding that some claims in patents describing systems for routing streamed content over the internet were invalid as indefinite and likewise affirmed findings that the technology company’s products did not meet a claim limitation required by the patents at issue.
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November 26, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 25 affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to order more than $250,000 in attorney fees and additional sanctions against a company that sued Google LLC for allegedly infringing a patent on a system that allows musical artists to remotely update an album already on a user’s device.
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November 26, 2025
NEW YORK — A federal magistrate judge in New York recommended that a patent plaintiff’s complaint against Google LLC be dismissed with prejudice after the man failed to appear at an October evidentiary bench trial on infringement claims he brought against the technology company; the plaintiff has “repeatedly claimed” that the magistrate judge “had no authority to conduct a bench trial without his consent,” the magistrate judge wrote.
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November 25, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — A federal magistrate judge in Delaware denied a motion for a new trial from affiliated coal companies that a jury held willfully infringed another energy company’s patents on the use of chemical additives to capture mercury emissions at coal-fired power plants, leaving in place the jury’s award of more than $57 million to the plaintiff company; the magistrate judge said the defendant entities “rehash[ed]” arguments already rejected in an earlier denial of judgment as a matter of law.
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November 25, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 24 affirmed a Virginia federal judge’s dismissal of claims that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) engaged in fraud to deny a pro se appellant’s patent applications, noting that it is the third time the appeals court has considered “frivolous” claims from the appellant.
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November 25, 2025
SEATTLE — A trading card company said it will appeal multiple rulings in a copyright dispute involving a former employee who left to develop a trading card game for a competitor after a Washington federal judge, who previously dismissed most of the claims against the former employee and competitor and ruled to exclude testimony from an expert on damages, awarded the company $39,000 in accordance with an accepted offer of judgment.
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November 24, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a pro se patent owner’s petition for a writ of certiorari in an order list on Nov. 24, leaving in place a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that affirmed a finding that multiple claims of the petitioner’s patent were invalid in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings initiated by Apple Inc.
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November 24, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A medical product company will not have the opportunity to argue that its proposed trademark on the color of its medical gloves is not generic, as the U.S. Supreme Court rejected its petition for a writ of certiorari in a Nov. 24 order list; the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) finding that the proposed mark was not distinctive.
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November 24, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision to uphold the validity of a technology company’s patents on stylus-based inputs for mobile devices; the majority agreed with PTAB that Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and an affiliate improperly introduced a new obviousness theory in a reply during inter partes review (IPR).
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November 21, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 20 held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly construed the claim term “acquiring interest data” when considering the patentability of a claim phrase in a patent describing a system to determine if a computer is being used by a human or a “bot”; under the correct construction, the panel held that the claim is anticipated by a prior art reference.
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November 21, 2025
TAMPA, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida denied a plaintiff sports medicine company’s motion for attorney fees, holding that its trademark dispute with another sports medicine company was not “exceptional” as defined in the Lanham Act despite the judge’s earlier grant of summary judgment in the plaintiff’s favor that led to an order canceling the defendant entity’s federally registered trademark.
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November 20, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — An Oregon federal magistrate judge properly granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of defendant railcar manufacturers in a dispute over patents related to railroad gondola cars because the accused cars lacked a required “floor panel extension” as defined by the patents, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Nov. 19.
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November 20, 2025
PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge held that a plaintiff designer is not barred from seeking damages and fees against a clothing company that contracted with another designer to use a pattern that allegedly infringed the plaintiff’s copyrighted design, finding that a four-year gap between the defendant designer’s alleged infringement and the clothing company’s use of the pattern on pajamas constituted separate acts of alleged infringement after a substantial cessation.
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November 20, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a joint stipulation relating two actions accusing Salesforce Inc. of pirating copyrighted books to train its artificial intelligence.
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November 20, 2025
FORT WORTH, Texas — An IT services company has sued an energy company in Texas federal court alleging that it misappropriated trade secrets when it misused login credentials related to proprietary software code that the IT company created and managed for the energy company’s operations as a provider of proppants to the hydraulic fracturing industry.
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November 20, 2025
ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A candidate for Congress seeking to represent parts of Detroit and The Campbell’s Soup Co. settled their trademark dispute in a Michigan federal court, with the candidate agreeing to remove from her social media images that referenced the company’s soup can; the candidate had argued that her use of the can design was a parodic reference to her own last name.
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November 19, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said on Nov. 18 that a generic drug maker “has overcome the doubly high burden of persuading us to overturn a jury verdict of no invalidity” in a dispute over a patent relating to a medication for eyelash growth, reversing a Colorado federal jury’s infringement finding and $39 million in damages.
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November 18, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Tennessee federal judge’s decision to grant more than $100,000 in attorney fees to a small grocery chain, finding no abuse of discretion in the judge’s finding that a plaintiff security technology company had a pattern of bringing frivolous patent infringement claims.
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November 18, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a new trial is needed on damages in a dispute over a patent describing a type of self-balancing unicycle, agreeing with the defendant-appellant companies that a Washington federal judge wrongly excluded evidence of noninfringing substitutes.