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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • November 07, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Motorola Can’t Seek Review Of PTO’s Rescission Of Earlier Memo

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an order issued Nov. 6, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied Motorola Solutions Inc.’s petition for a writ of mandamus, holding that Motorola could not seek review of the now-former acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision to rescind her Biden-administration predecessor’s memorandum on discretionary denials or to issue such a denial for Motorola’s requests for inter partes review in a patent dispute over law enforcement cameras.

  • November 07, 2025

    Google, Samsung Lose Mandamus Bid Regarding PTO Rescission Order

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Google LLC, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and a Samsung affiliate saw their petition for a writ of mandamus denied by a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 6, with the panel citing a precedential decision issued the same day as foreclosing the companies’ arguments in a patent dispute regarding an alleged violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

  • November 07, 2025

    Federal Circuit Blocks SAP’s Mandamus Bid Over PTO Rescission Of Memo

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 6 denied a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by SAP America Inc., holding that the company failed to show that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) discretionary denial of inter partes review (IPR) was reviewable, pointing to a precedential decision issued the same day.

  • November 07, 2025

    Judge Consolidates Disney, Warner Bros. AI Suits Against Midjourney

    LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California consolidated two artificial intelligence copyright actions — one involving Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and the second Disney Enterprises Inc. — alleging that Midjourney Inc.’s artificial intelligence outputs the entertainment companies’ copyrighted characters.

  • November 06, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Rehear Arguments In LG Patent Written Description Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a technology company’s request for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc, rejecting the company’s argument that a panel improperly shifted the burden of written description onto it when it reversed a New Jersey federal jury’s finding of willful infringement against LG Electronics Inc. and a related entity due to invalidity of the patent claims.

  • November 06, 2025

    Federal Judge Trims Some Defenses From ‘Impossible’ Trademark Row

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A California federal judge partly granted summary judgment in favor of Impossible Foods Inc. in a dispute over the use of the word mark “Impossible,” agreeing that all of a defendant website entity’s affirmative defenses and certain of its damages theories failed, including its contention that Impossible’s suit was unreasonably delayed.

  • November 06, 2025

    Perplexity: Engineered Prompts Can’t Form Basis Of AI Copyright Suit

    NEW YORK — Perplexity AI Inc. told a federal judge in New York in a motion to dismiss that outputs resulting from prompts engineered by plaintiff Encyclopedia Britannica Inc. cannot form the basis of a copyright claim and that the plaintiff has not sufficiently identified the protected works in question.

  • November 06, 2025

    Pa. Federal Judge: No Jurisdiction Over N.C. Advertiser In Trademark Row

    PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge granted a defendant advertising company’s motion to dismiss claims that it infringed a T-shirt company’s mark on the phrase “Rush Order Tees,” finding that the advertiser’s online advertising did not constitute the purposeful direction of conduct toward Pennsylvania for the purposes of establishing personal jurisdiction.

  • November 05, 2025

    Precedential PTO Decision Sets Machine Learning Abstractness Standards

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Appeals Review Panel (ARP) vacated a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) panel’s new ground of rejection for claims of an artificial intelligence inventor’s patent application regarding a machine learning patent as directed at an abstract idea in a Nov. 4 precedential decision; the APR left in place, however, the PTAB panel’s affirmation of a PTO examiner’s rejection of the application’s claims as obvious.

  • November 05, 2025

    Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity Findings For Audio Tech Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a nonprecedential Nov. 4 opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) properly construed the disputed claim term “background noise level,” affirming the board’s finding that most claims in a technology company’s patent describing an earpiece device were unpatentable as obvious or anticipated by prior art.

  • November 05, 2025

    No New Trial For Clothing Company That Used Penn State Marks

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal judge denied a clothing company’s July motion for either judgment as a matter of law in its favor or a new trial, holding that a jury had sufficient evidence to find that the company willfully infringed trademarks held by The Pennsylvania State University.

  • November 04, 2025

    Judge Tosses Perplexity Trademark Suit After Plaintiff Fails To Secure Counsel

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge dismissed with prejudice a data analytics company’s trademark infringement complaint against artificial intelligence company Perplexity AI Inc. after the plaintiff entity repeatedly failed to heed court warnings that it could not appear pro se.

  • November 04, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Order Stay Of Infringement Trial For Video Tagging Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Nov. 3 rejected a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking the stay of a forthcoming infringement trial in a Texas federal court concerning a patent for a method of tagging streaming videos, holding that the adult video website petitioners failed to show that they had an indisputable right to a stay due to a related ex parte reexamination (EPR) proceeding before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO).

  • November 04, 2025

    UMG Announces Agreement With Udio AI Music Platform, Resolving Copyright Claims

    NEW YORK — Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a partnership under which its licensed music will power a subscription service with artificial intelligence music company Uncharted Labs Inc. d/b/a Udio.com and will resolve the music publisher’s portion of a copyright case just as a motion to dismiss was wrapping up.

  • November 03, 2025

    7th Circuit: Judge Wrong To Ignore Choice Of Damages Type In Copyright Default

    CHICAGO — While acknowledging the influx of copyright cases against anonymous online marketplaces and the strain it has caused on Illinois federal courts, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a federal judge was wrong to choose statutory damages over disgorgement of profits for an alternative-style apparel plaintiff against online sellers that failed to appear.

  • November 03, 2025

    AI Artist Seeks Hold Of Petition Pending Copyright Agency Leadership Decisions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold consideration of his petition for a writ of certiorari in a case challenging denial of copyright protection for an artificial intelligence-generated piece of artwork while courts decide whether Shira Perlmutter can continue to serve as head of the U.S. Copyright Office.

  • October 31, 2025

    Government Won’t Reply To AI Image Copyright Protection Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government filed a notice that it was waiving its right to respond to a man’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which he tells the U.S. Supreme Court that copyright protections are in place to ensure dissemination of creative works to the public even when a human is not the owner and should apply to artificial intelligence-generated outputs for the same reasons.

  • October 31, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Merck Can’t Use Team Overlap To Escape Patent Obviousness

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it held that a prior publication about a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug created through a collaboration involving a company that eventually merged into Merck Serono SA was prior art created “by another” for the purpose of showing that certain claims of more recent Merck patents were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Oct. 30 in a pair of opinions stemming from separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings.

  • October 31, 2025

    ISP Maintains Argument To High Court That It Is Not Liable For Piracy

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an Oct. 30 reply brief, an internet service provider (ISP) maintains its argument before the U.S. Supreme Court that it must overturn a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals finding that it is liable for contributory infringement for internet users who pirated copyrighted materials of record labels and music publishers.

  • October 31, 2025

    Inventor Says In Rehearing Bid That Federal Circuit Wrongly Applied Laches

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a petition for rehearing en banc, an inventor tells the full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a panel’s application of prosecution laches conflicts with precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the panel was wrong to uphold a District of Columbia federal judge’s finding that prosecution laches barred the inventor’s patent applications.

  • October 30, 2025

    Pornography Downloads Likely Personal Use, Not AI Training, Meta Claims

    SAN FRANCISCO — The small amount of adult videos downloaded by IP addresses associated with Meta Platforms Inc. were likely downloaded for personal use and not for training artificial intelligence, the company says in asking a federal judge in California to dismiss copyright infringement claims.

  • October 30, 2025

    Judge: Poker Patent Licensee Failed To Show Owner Knew Patents Were Invalid

    LAS VEGAS — A federal judge in Nevada dismissed a defendant gaming company’s counterclaims in a dispute over royalty agreements of a patent on a variant version of three-card poker, finding that the defendant company failed to plausibly allege that the plaintiff entity should have known that its patent claims were invalid when inking the licensing agreement at issue.

  • October 30, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Rethink Denying Bid To Block Tech Patent Cases’ Transfer

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 29 turned down a technology company’s petitions for rehearing in related proceedings stemming from petitions for writs of mandamus it filed; the appeals court left in place September orders by a panel that rejected the company’s request to block the transfer of its suits against two technology giants from a Texas federal court to one in California.

  • October 29, 2025

    Federal Circuit Denies Mandamus To Patent Holder In Background Check Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 28 denied a patent holder’s petition for a writ of mandamus, leaving in place a California federal judge’s refusal to transfer the case to a federal court in Oklahoma; the panel found no abuse of discretion in the judge’s finding that the delayed nature of the patent holder’s motion to transfer called the motivations for the transfer into question.

  • October 29, 2025

    Claims In Roof-Measuring Patent Obvious; Federal Circuit Agrees With PTAB

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected a company’s claim that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) failed to fully explain its motivation-to-combine reasoning when it held that all challenged claims of its patent describing a process of measuring roofs with aerial imagery were unpatentable as obvious, affirming the PTAB’s findings.