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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).
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May 29, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Michigan federal judge’s summary judgment ruling in favor of the leader of Parliament-Funkadelic and a related company, holding that genuine questions of fact remain as to whether the defendant entities expressly repudiated a late former band member’s claims of copyright co-ownership interests.
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May 29, 2026
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina on May 28 dismissed a cabinet designer’s suit against homeowners and construction entities accused of infringing a copyrighted cabinet design, holding that the cabinet does not qualify as an “architectural work” despite being registered as such with the U.S. Copyright Office.
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May 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Utah federal judge’s entry of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) in a patent infringement case brought against DISH Network LLC and another entity, agreeing with the judge’s determination that a jury lacked sufficient evidence to reach its finding that the asserted patents were infringed.
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May 28, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia denied motions from three law firms to dismiss copyright infringement complaints against them filed by a jury consultant who prepared a jury attitude report in support of two criminal defendants accused of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, finding that the consultant adequately pleaded infringement to survive dismissal.
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May 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that a Michigan federal judge wrongly barred a technology company from seeking unjust enrichment damages against Ford Motor Co. and wrongly vacated a jury’s award of breach of contract damages; the panel also affirmed a finding that Ford had misappropriated the company’s trade secrets related to software used in vehicle development.
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May 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Kentucky mother is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider her arguments rejected by a Kentucky federal judge and the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that the fair-use exception of the Copyright Act permitted her to request a copy of a mental health survey that was to be administered to students at a Kentucky public high school.
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May 26, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 22 held that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) correctly held that a patent describing a computerized roof measuring tool was invalid as obvious, further upholding the PTAB’s conclusion that the patent would still have been under the appellant entity’s preferred claim construction of a disputed claim phrase.
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May 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) properly held that a technology company’s patent claims were invalid as obvious in view of prior art references, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held May 21, finding no errors in PTAB’s claim construction during inter partes review (IPR) proceedings initiated by software company Intuit Inc.
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May 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 21 affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s finding that a biopharmaceutical company’s patents related to a medication to treat kidney disease were not infringed by other biopharmaceutical companies’ filing for approval of a generic version of the drug by adding more than the claimed amount of a specific molecule to the generic version.
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May 21, 2026
AKRON, Ohio — A man who was sentenced to spend 63 months in prison after admitting to criminal charges of counterfeiting for using trademarks owned by the federal government to suggest that body armor he was selling had passed federal ballistic resistance performance testing was ordered by an Ohio federal judge to pay $1 million in damages after defaulting on civil trademark claims brought by the government.
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May 20, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania federal judge did not properly analyze whether alleged infringers’ shipments of products with copyrighted art to Pennsylvania established personal jurisdiction before dismissing an artist’s copyright infringement suit against dozens of foreign entities, a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held May 19, vacating the dismissal.
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May 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C — The U.S. Supreme Court again denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the United Services Automobile Association (USAA), leaving in place a pair of Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinions that invalidated patent claims held by USAA as being directed at the abstract concept of depositing a check with a mobile device.
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May 19, 2026
NEW YORK — Artificial intelligence company Groq Inc. and health care app company Groq Health Inc. told a federal judge in New York that they resolved their long-running trademark dispute.
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May 19, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 18 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari from a technology company that argued that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals wrongly applied its own precedent and that of the high court when it reversed U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) findings that multiple patent claims were not invalid as abstract in inter partes review proceedings involving Lyft Inc.
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May 19, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a May 18 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a lighting company’s petition for a writ of certiorari that challenged the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ practice of issuing one-word affirmances of lower court decisions in patent cases, becoming the latest such unsuccessful challenge to the practice.
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May 18, 2026
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — A Pennsylvania federal judge granted a photographer’s motion for summary judgment on claims that a dog-breeding entity infringed a photo of a dog standing on a scale by using it without permission on the breeder’s website, rejecting the breeder’s affirmative defense of fair use.
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May 15, 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 patent claims describing universal remote-control systems were unpatentable as obvious in inter partes review (IPR) proceedings initiated by Roku Inc. against a rival it has met on appeal at the Federal Circuit in recent months.
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a corrected May 13 order, the full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals again denied a petition for en banc rehearing to reconsider whether a NASA subcontractor was immunized from infringement claims through its work for the federal government in its help developing a helicopter sent to Mars, leaving in place a panel’s February finding that the company was in fact immune.
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a lower court’s decision to award a company certain attorney fees it incurred defending itself against patent infringement claims, finding that the lower court was right to find the case “exceptional.”
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on May 13 affirmed a West Virginia federal judge’s finding that a generic drug maker did not infringe patents describing a compound used in a hypertension drug because a claim term “a pH of 13 or higher” referred to a standard temperature in the field; the panel said it found no clear error in the judge’s claim construction.
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May 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A partially split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals largely affirmed findings from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision finding that multiple claims of railroad collision-avoidance patents were invalid as obvious as per prior art; the panel reversed the PTAB’s finding that certain challenged claims survived, determining that the PTAB employed too narrow a claim construction on these claims.
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May 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Three pro se plaintiff-appellants lacked standing to sue the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) after it rejected their request to submit their patent application as a micro entity because they failed to show that they retained an interest in the application, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held May 12, agreeing with a Texas federal judge who granted the PTO’s motion to dismiss.