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June 12, 2026
CINCINNATI — An Ohio federal judge did not err when denying The Scotts Co. LLC’s motion for a preliminary injunction against The Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) on trade dress infringement and dilution claims, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held; the panel found that the judge’s conclusion that the two companies’ gardening product packaging was “‘highly dissimilar’” provided a sufficient basis to hold that Scotts was unlikely to succeed on the merits.
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June 12, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A Virginia federal judge on June 11 denied a motion for a preliminary injunction that tobacco company Altria Group Inc., its vape subsidiary NJOY LLC and their affiliates filed seeking to stop an International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation into certain vape products based on a patent-related complaint by Juul Labs Inc. (JLI), writing that the plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed on their argument that such proceedings are unconstitutional and violate their rights to a jury trial under SEC v. Jarkesy.
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June 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a win for Google LLC, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed two final written decisions in which the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) found that multiple claims in two patents related to using spoken words to wake up a sound-enabled device were invalid as anticipated or obvious by prior art; the panel held that PTAB lacked substantial evidence to support its finding that a prior art reference disclosed the claims at issue.
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June 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 11 affirmed a Texas federal judge’s dismissal of a patent holder’s infringement suit against Bank of America Corp. and a related entity with prejudice, holding that the banking entities’ password technology did not meet a properly construed claim limitation central to the patent at issue.
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June 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a federal judge in Delaware was correct to find that a claim of a patent covering elements of OxyContin was invalid as obvious; the panel determined that substantial evidence showed that a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to replace the nonscalable heating method disclosed in the prior art with a device called a coating pan and would have reasonably expected that approach to succeed.
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June 12, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding that all claims of a woman’s patents describing a system for recovering a stolen computer challenged by Google LLC and Microsoft Corp. were unpatentable as obvious; the panel also dismissed the woman’s challenge to PTAB’s refusal to revisit the institution of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings for an alleged stipulation violation, finding that this challenge was barred from judicial review.
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June 11, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A divided Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a South Dakota federal judge’s dismissal of a trademark infringement suit brought by the founder of a tobacco company and a cigar maker against the founder’s former company; the majority agreed with the judge that the dispute necessarily arose out of a stock purchase agreement that included a mandatory forum selection clause that required litigation in South Dakota state court.
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June 11, 2026
CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 10 agreed with an Illinois federal judge’s finding that a maker of patriotic clothes began using the phrase “This We’ll Defend” as a source-identifying trademark years before a different clothing company began using the same phrase as a mark, affirming the judge’s finding that a trademark registration was defeated by the timing.
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June 11, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it affirmed an examiner’s finding that a robotics inventor’s application for a patent on automated kitchen systems was rendered obvious by prior art; the panel held that substantial evidence supported a finding that a person of skill in the relevant art would have motivation to combine two prior art patent applications.
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June 10, 2026
NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a New York federal judge’s summary judgment ruling that a 2004 U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) ruling had preclusive effect on the issue of likelihood-of-confusion on claims that a California winery infringed an Italian winery’s trademarks; the panel determined that TTAB’s order did not meaningfully consider the parties’ use of the marks at issue in commerce and thus did not have preclusive effect.
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June 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — PepsiCo Inc. and a coffee brewing company filed supplemental briefs on June 8 in the U.S. Supreme Court, reacting to the U.S. government’s call for the court to deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the coffee brewing company that argues the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “stands alone” in considering a trademark’s strength a question of law and not a question of fact. The briefs follow a recent amicus curiae brief in which the government told the court that certiorari should be denied, even though it believes the Second Circuit’s opinion was erroneous.
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June 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held June 8 that a U.S. Court of Federal Claims judge was right to find that the court had no jurisdiction under the Tucker Act to consider a pro se computer scientist’s Fifth Amendment takings claim against the U.S. government because copyright claims against the government can be brought only under the statute the plaintiff used to pursue relief in a series of earlier suits.
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June 08, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 5 affirmed an Illinois federal judge’s finding that an appellant biopharmaceutical company’s generic version of an injectable antibiotic treatment method infringes another company’s patents. The panel also rejected the appellant company’s argument that the patents were invalid for lack of adequate written description (Melinta Therapeutics, LLC, et al. v. Nexus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Nos. 25-1281, 25-1282, Fed. Cir., 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 16259).
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June 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on June 4 found that a Texas federal judge improperly combined four patents related to a heating and ventilation system into a single infringement question on the verdict form and wrongly gave the jury incomplete instructions on patent eligibility; the panel vacated the jury’s infringement findings and damages award of more than $11.5 million and ordered a new trial on both issues.
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June 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on June 4 held that a biopharmaceutical company failed to plausibly allege that a bioequivalent maker actively induced patent infringement after considering arguments on the standard of induced infringement in medical patent cases, including ones with “skinny label” generic versions. The high court determined that the patent owner relied on vague language and speculation to attempt to show that the bioequivalent maker induced infringement.
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June 04, 2026
ATLANTA — In a matter of first impression, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a late rapper who was a member of hip-hop group 2 Live Crew lost ownership of copyright interests in the group’s earliest recordings to his bankruptcy estate upon declaring bankruptcy, reversing a Florida federal judge’s finding that the rapper maintained copyright interests.
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June 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — While a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in a June 2 opinion that it agreed with a Nebraska federal judge’s finding that patents describing the sharing of farming data were directed at patent-ineligible abstract concepts, the panel also held that the judge failed to adequately explain why the case was not exceptional for the purpose of attorney fees under the Patent Act.
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June 02, 2026
PHOENIX — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel awarded an Italian wine company all of its attorney fees incurred defending against a “frivolous” appeal brought by an American distributor challenging the confirmation of an International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) award against it in a trademark dispute, and ordered further proceedings to determine the amount of fees owed.
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June 02, 2026
CHICAGO — A Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed an Illinois federal judge’s finding that the Hague Service Convention allowed a plaintiff clothing company to serve alleged counterfeiters in China through email, holding that the convention bars email service to entities based in China; however, the panel also determined that the judge failed to address the threshold issue of whether the Hague Service Convention applies to the case at all.
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June 02, 2026
ST. LOUIS — An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel determined on June 1 that it lacked jurisdiction to consider a Minnesota federal judge’s entry of sanctions against a man accused of copying business databases and selling data derived from them through a series of web entities; the panel held that the sanctions order was not a final appealable judgment.
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June 01, 2026
Over the last month, authors and other rights holders filed five federal lawsuits targeting artificial intelligence companies. In one of the most recent actions, Cable News Network Inc. (CNN) sued Perplexity AI Inc. claiming that the company’s bot unlawfully scrapes news stories and that its “answer engine” then outputs repackaged but nearly verbatim versions of original, copyrighted works.
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June 01, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Authors who opted out of a previous class action settlement that Anthropic PBC reached with authors over its use of their works to train its Claude large language model sued the company in a California federal court, alleging direct and contributory copyright violations and removal of copyright management information.
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May 29, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Companies that operate an artificial intelligence (AI) image and video generating service must face a suit alleging copyright infringement brought jointly by Disney Enterprises Inc., Universal City Studios Productions LLP and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. after a California federal judge rejected arguments that the film entities failed to state a claim.
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May 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) wrongly concluded that a technology company’s technical expert’s testimony was conclusory and unsupported while considering inter partes review (IPR) proceedings the company initiated challenging another entity’s patent describing a digital educational content delivery system, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in a May 28 opinion.
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May 29, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A partially split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 28 reversed a Massachusetts federal judge’s entry of judgment against defendant-appellants accused of misappropriating trade secrets related to an insulin patch pump, holding that the plaintiff-appellee’s claims were time-barred by the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA).