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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • June 13, 2025

    9th Circuit Agrees ‘WallStreetBets’ Creator’s Trademark, UCL Claims Fail

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a California federal judge’s dismissal of a trademark and unfair competition suit against Reddit Inc. by the founder of the “WallStreetBets” message board that was the center of the ballooning of GameStop Corp.’s share value in 2021; the panel said the board’s founder failed to show that he used the name “WallStreetBets” as a mark in commerce.

  • June 13, 2025

    Judge Says New York Times’ AI Use, Licensing, Irrelevant To Copyright Suit

    NEW YORK — The New York Times Co. and other news entities’ use of artificial intelligence, stances on the technology and licensing deals are not relevant to their copyright claims against Microsoft Corp. and others over the alleged use of news articles used to train AI, a federal judge in New York said in turning away objections to a magistrate judge’s ruling on a motion to compel.

  • June 12, 2025

    Judge Says Golf League’s IP Declaratory Judgment Suit Was Strategically Filed

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware federal judge said that a virtual golf league founded by Tiger Woods and others attempted to use the Declaratory Judgment Act as “a strategic device to gain some perceived tactical advantage” when it filed a declaratory judgment trademark action against a golf product company; the judge dismissed the complaint without prejudice.

  • June 12, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidation Of CRISPR Patents As Anticipated

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 11 said there was no error in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) finding that all claims of a biotechnology company’s patents on gene modification are invalid; the panel said that substantial evidence supported PTAB’s finding that prior art anticipated the patents.

  • June 12, 2025

    4th Circuit Won’t Revive Gunmaker’s IP, Contract Claims Rejected By Jurors

    RICHMOND, Va. — A Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Virginia federal judge’s denial of a Turkish firearms manufacturer’s motion for a new trial after a jury found in favor of a defendant distributor on the manufacturer’s trademark claims, saying that the manufacturer “had its day in court.”

  • June 12, 2025

    Movie, TV Titans Claim Midjourney AI Is ‘Bootlegging Business Model’

    LOS ANGELES — Disney Enterprises Inc., Marvel Characters Inc. and other movie companies behind some of the most well-known movies and television shows of all time sued artificial intelligence company Midjourney Inc. on June 11, calling the company “the quintessential copyright free-rider and a bottomless pit of plagiarism.”

  • June 11, 2025

    11th Circuit Revives Georgia Park’s Trademark Claims Against Foreign IP Holder

    ATLANTA — A federal judge in Georgia applied an overly strict standard when determining if a company based in the British Virgin Islands had sufficient contacts with the United States for the purposes of establishing personal jurisdiction in a dispute over the registered trademark “Summer Waves,” a panel in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held June 10.

  • June 11, 2025

    Federal Circuit OKs PTAB Rejection Of Heart Valve Patent Invalidity Arguments

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) order that allowed Cardiovalve Ltd. to amend multiple claims in its patent, agreeing with PTAB that Edwards Lifesciences Corp. and a related entity failed to show that the claims of Cardiovalve’s heart implant patent were invalid.

  • June 10, 2025

    Federal Circuit Again Sends Sirius XM Patent Row Back To District Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 9 reversed a Delaware federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Sirius XM Radio Inc. (SXM), saying that testimony from a representative from the company raised question of material fact as to whether its behavior was driven by a lack of response from a plaintiff German research organization or business strategy.

  • June 10, 2025

    High Court Rejects Another Challenge To Federal Circuit’s 1-Word Patent Orders

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a medical device company’s petition for a writ of certiorari, turning away the company’s request that the court reconsider both whether the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals should stop issuing one-word affirmations of lower court decisions in patent cases and if the high court must rethink its framework for analyzing a patent’s abstractness to prevent lower court “overreach” in invalidation.

  • June 09, 2025

    3rd Circuit: Generic Drug Maker Lacked Standing To Appeal Foreign Discovery Order

    PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that it lacked jurisdiction over a discovery dispute in a New Jersey federal court that ultimately stems from an ongoing patent dispute in South Korea, holding that a discovery order under the federal statute that governs U.S. discovery for foreign proceedings was not an appealable final decision.

  • June 09, 2025

    Split Federal Circuit: Apple Relied On Unanalogous Prior Art Before PTAB

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split panel in the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a decision from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in which the board rejected Apple Inc.’s challenge to a patent related to camera-based computer interaction, holding that Apple failed to show that the prior art reference it relied on was analogous to the patent at issue.

  • June 06, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Dolby Lacked Standing To Appeal PTAB Finding In Its Favor

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Dolby Laboratories Licensing Corp. lacked standing to appeal a procedural issue in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings where the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) held that a petitioner failed to show the invalidity of Dolby’s patent, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled June 5, saying Dolby was unable to establish an injury in fact.

  • June 06, 2025

    Copyright Claims About Spanish-Language Religious Films Time-Barred, Judge Rules

    LOS ANGELES — A California federal judge dismissed with prejudice a Mexican motion picture company’s copyright infringement complaint involving multiple Spanish-language films telling stories from the life of Jesus Christ, agreeing with the defendant film distributors that the plaintiff company’s claims are time-barred by the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations.

  • June 06, 2025

    Generic Drugmaker Tells High Court To Block Purdue’s Oxycontin Patent Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should reject a petition for a writ of certiorari from Purdue Pharma LP and related entities, a generic drug manufacturer told the high court in an opposition brief that argues that Purdue is wrong to suggest that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has created a rigid nexus test when considering evidence of nonobviousness in a dispute over patents controlling Purdue’s Oxycontin drug.

  • June 05, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Did Not Infringe On Patented Lipid

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Delaware federal judge rightly held that a COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna Inc. and related entities does not infringe on a biopharmaceutical company’s patents related to a type of lipid used in mRNA vaccines, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held June 4, saying the lipid in Moderna’s vaccine does not meet the limitations described in the pharmaceutical company’s patents.

  • June 05, 2025

    Chinese Tech Firm Waives Mandamus Response In High Court Patent Discovery Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Chinese-owned flash memory chip company opted against responding to a petition for mandamus in which an American chip maker seeks relief from a discovery order requiring it to turn over sensitive documents to its Chinese rival, filing a notice of waiver with the U.S. Supreme Court on June 4.

  • June 05, 2025

    Judge Enters $18M Judgment Against Fake Urine Maker Plaintiff In Patent Fight

    LAS VEGAS — A federal judge in Nevada entered a judgment totaling more than $18 million against the plaintiff and counter-defendant in a suit involving the alleged infringement of patents on synthetic urine that the company filed, citing the company’s failure to retain new counsel more than a year after its attorneys departed the case for lack of payment.

  • June 04, 2025

    Valve’s Patent Validity Suit Stayed While Defendants’ Counsel Seek Payment

    SEATTLE — A Washington federal judge issued a 45-day stay of video game company Valve Corp.’s complaint against a man the company accuses of being a “patent troll,” entities he controls and others while the defendants seek new counsel and the court mulls the defendants’ current counsel’s motion to withdraw from the case for lack of payment.

  • June 04, 2025

    2nd Circuit Partly Revives Contract Dispute Over Musical Composition Payments

    NEW YORK — In a June 3 summary order, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel partly revived a music publisher’s complaint against a South Korean musician, holding that a January 2014 licensing agreement did not make changes to the division of copyright ownership interests of musical compositions.

  • June 04, 2025

    Judge Tosses Cybersquatting Claim From Trademark Row Over ‘Perplexity’ Name

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge dismissed a cybersquatting claim against Perplexity AI Inc. in a trademark infringement dispute brought against it by a smaller data analytics company, finding that the plaintiff company failed to establish a required showing of bad faith use of the mark on the artificial intelligence company’s part.

  • June 03, 2025

    Tech Firm Seeks Mandamus From High Court In Memory Chip Patent Discovery Row

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A flash memory chip maker filed a petition for mandamus with the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking relief from a trial court’s discovery order requiring it to turn over sensitive documents to a Chinese rival tech firm, which the petitioner says would violate an existing protective order and implicate national security concerns.

  • June 03, 2025

    Judge Orders Pesticide Company To Provide More Answers In IP Discovery Dispute

    COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio federal magistrate judge on June 2 ordered plaintiff pesticide manufacturers identify with specificity the protectible elements of two copyrights they say were infringed by a defendant pesticide manufacturer, granting the defendant company’s motion to compel discovery in which the company accused the plaintiff entities of responding to questions about the copyrights with “evasive” answers.

  • June 03, 2025

    Federal Magistrate Says Conduct Warrants Case-Ending Sanctions In Trademark Fight

    AUSTIN, Texas — A federal magistrate judge in Texas recommended that the chief operating officer of a plastics company be given terminating sanctions for his failure to turn over his cell phone and computer for examination in a trademark infringement suit brought by Yeti Coolers LLC.

  • June 03, 2025

    Supreme Court Denies Certiorari To Tire Company In Trade Dress, Patent Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 2 denied a tire corporation’s petition for a writ of certiorari, turning down the company’s request that it consider what it called the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ expansion of Illinois’ absolute litigation privilege in its ruling on trade dress and patent claims brought by another tire company.