A California federal court ruled that a Houston attorney who served as outside counsel to Schrader Cellars has no ownership interest in the winery or its RBS wine brand, rejecting his claim of a decades-old handshake deal.
Following a $13 million jury verdict for trade secret misappropriation, a Texas federal court granted a permanent injunction but significantly narrowed its scope, and required plaintiffs to elect between overlapping damages theories to avoid double recovery.
A Northern District of California court dismissed six AI bot patents as ineligible under Alice but spared a seventh — a real-time translation patent — finding its claims specified how a remote server achieves multilingual group communication, rather than merely claiming the abstract idea of translation.
The CJEU held that a retirement home’s retransmission of satellite TV and radio signals to residents’ rooms via internal cable does not constitute a ‘communication to the public’ under EU copyright law, because residents are not a ‘new public’ beyond the original broadcast audience.
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB’s construction of ‘short range’ as a relative term and upheld the invalidation of one claim, but vacated and remanded on four other claims where the Board failed to address FedEx’s argument about power management instructions.
A federal court dismissed Eli Lilly’s Lanham Act false advertising claim against Empower Pharmacy over compounded tirzepatide (the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound) for lack of proximate causation, but allowed state consumer protection claims to proceed in eight states.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that Cisco’s products do not infringe three Centripetal network security patents, reaching the opposite result from the original bench trial that was vacated due to the judge’s failure to disclose his wife’s Cisco stock ownership.
A New York federal court denied Deloitte’s motion to dismiss trade secret misappropriation claims alleging the consulting giant posed as a partner to steal proprietary vaccine-tracking software and then used it to secure an $80 million CDC contract.
The Seventh Circuit affirmed a $2,000 statutory damages award in a trademark counterfeiting and cybersquatting default case, holding that obtaining a default judgment alone does not excuse a plaintiff from proving up its damages request.
In the latest chapter of this high-profile patent dispute, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment of noninfringement on three cybersecurity packet-filtering patents, after the original $2.75 billion verdict was vacated due to a judicial recusal issue.
A California federal court dismissed Brandy Melville’s Lanham Act and unfair competition claims against Shein, finding they were preempted by the Copyright Act because they merely recast copyright infringement allegations as trademark claims.
The Second Circuit held for the first time that ‘misconduct’ under Rule 60(b)(3) does not include merely negligent discovery failures, and affirmed denial of Adidas’s motion to reopen a jury verdict favoring Thom Browne’s four-stripe activewear designs.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that a patent for monitoring vehicles using RFID detection and operator identification is directed to the abstract idea of detecting, transmitting, and processing data, and lacks any inventive concept to survive Alice scrutiny.
In a precedential decision, the TTAB cancelled Everwise Credit Union’s trademark registration after finding the credit union filed its statement of use before actually using the mark in commerce, while still operating under its former Teachers Credit Union brand.
An Illinois federal court dismissed the trespass to chattels claim in a dispute over a browser extension that displays price comparison popups over e-commerce sites, continuing the long line of “website framing” cases.
A Delaware federal judge denied Duracell’s motion to dismiss BASF’s trade secret claims over proprietary lithium-ion battery cathode technology, rejecting defenses of independent development and licensing.
In a precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit drew a sharp § 101 line between functional ‘optimization’ claims that recite a result without specifying a concrete configuration and ‘constellation’ claims that recite specific non-uniform point arrangements. It vacated summary judgment of eligibility for the former and affirmed eligibility for the latter, while affirming the underlying jury verdict, willful-infringement finding, and damages award against LG.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that Section 230 bars claims by Rohingya plaintiffs alleging that Facebook’s algorithmic design fueled genocide in Myanmar, but two concurrences urged the court to reconsider the sweeping scope of the immunity.
Two parallel N.D. Cal. rulings dismiss all claims—First Amendment, conspiracy, contract, and emotional distress—against Meta for suspending user accounts, holding that Section 230 immunizes platforms’ editorial decisions even when alleged to target political viewpoints.
The UK High Court dismissed claims by the estates of Jimi Hendrix Experience members Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, ruling that their 1966 recording agreement unambiguously assigned copyright to the producers and that prior releases barred all claims, including those related to streaming.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of claims by Rohingya plaintiffs alleging Facebook’s algorithm amplified anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar, holding that Section 230 immunizes Meta from liability for algorithmically recommending third-party content — though two concurring opinions urged the court to reconsider its broad reading of Section 230.
The PTAB invalidated all challenged claims in two Maxell video processing patents, continuing Samsung’s campaign to dismantle the patent portfolio behind a $112 million E.D. Texas jury verdict that was already overturned on JMOL.
The UK High Court ruled that the estates of Jimi Hendrix’s bandmates Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell have no copyright ownership or performers’ property rights in approximately 40 studio recordings, finding the 1966 Recording Agreement unambiguously assigned worldwide copyright to producers.
Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court convicted four engineers and fined Tokyo Electron NT$150 million for stealing TSMC’s advanced 2-nanometer chip manufacturing secrets, in the first corporate conviction under Taiwan’s amended National Security Act.
A D.C. federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against a Canadian company selling competing nasal strip refills on Amazon, finding likely infringement of a magnetic nasal dilator patent and irreparable harm from price erosion and reputational damage.
A Maryland federal judge ruled that a competitor’s published research report criticizing an ad verification company’s bot detection services may constitute ‘commercial advertising or promotion’ under the Lanham Act, allowing false advertising and defamation claims to proceed.
Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court convicted four engineers and fined Tokyo Electron NT$150 million in the first-ever corporate conviction under Taiwan’s National Security Act, for theft of TSMC’s 2nm semiconductor process technology classified as a national core critical technology.
The Supreme Court denied certiorari in EscapeX IP v. Google, leaving in place a Federal Circuit decision affirming over $250,000 in attorney-fee sanctions against a patent plaintiff that pursued a ‘frivolous’ infringement suit against YouTube Music.
A federal court in North Carolina granted Joe Gibbs Racing a preliminary injunction barring former competition director Christopher Gabehart from retaining or using the team’s trade secrets, but declined to extend relief against his new employer, Spire Motorsports.
In a consolidated order resolving three writ petitions, the Nevada Supreme Court applied its earlier TikTok and Snap decisions to reject Meta’s challenge to the State’s deceptive-trade-practices, products liability, negligence, and unjust enrichment claims over Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram — holding that personal jurisdiction was properly exercised and that neither Section 230 nor the First Amendment shields Meta from state-law claims aimed at platform design rather than third-party content.
A Manhattan federal jury awarded $102 million to the Morgan Art Foundation after finding art dealer Michael McKenzie and American Image Art produced and sold thousands of unauthorized reproductions of Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE artwork.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the jury’s $11.125 million verdict in a DSL standard-essential patent dispute, rejecting TQ Delta’s challenges to noninfringement and invalidity findings on two of its patents while upholding the damages award on four others.
A federal judge in San Francisco barred OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Jony Ive from using the ‘IO’ mark for AI hardware devices, finding iyO Inc. likely to succeed on its trademark infringement claim where the marks differ by only one letter and are pronounced identically.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Article 9(5) of the IP Enforcement Directive precludes national laws that allow provisional trademark measures to remain in force indefinitely when the rights-holder fails to file substantive proceedings within the mandatory deadline.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC’s finding that Keysight Technologies did not violate Section 337 by importing cybersecurity products, holding that Centripetal failed to prove its own products practiced the asserted patents and waived multiple infringement arguments on appeal.
A federal magistrate judge held that Section 230 immunizes X (formerly Twitter) from a premium subscriber’s claims that the platform amplified harmful content via its recommendation algorithm and suppressed the subscriber’s own posts, rejecting the argument that algorithmic curation falls outside Section 230’s protections.
The Federal Circuit reversed summary judgment of noninfringement as to one version of Google’s Content ID system, finding genuine disputes of material fact remain over whether the system performs a ‘sublinear’ search as required by Network-1’s video fingerprinting patent.
The Second Circuit revived a videographer’s copyright claims against a hip-hop news website that republished his 42-second video of Michael Jordan breaking up a fight, ruling that fair use and de minimis defenses were wrongly decided at the pleading stage.
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania ruled that MEDDPICC — a widely used B2B sales qualification methodology — is a generic term that cannot be trademarked, ordering the USPTO to cancel the registration and dismissing all counterclaims with prejudice.
Federal Circuit affirms PTAB ruling that claims of Slingshot Printing’s inkjet printer semiconductor substrate patent are obvious over prior-art printhead designs.
Federal Circuit affirms PTAB unpatentability of most claims of Centripetal Networks’ cybersecurity patent, then reverses PTAB on cross-appeal to find all 20 claims obvious — wiping out the patent entirely.
Federal Circuit affirms ITC finding of no Section 337 violation in Centripetal Networks’ cybersecurity patent dispute against Keysight Technologies, citing failure to satisfy the domestic industry technical prong.
Eastern District of Pennsylvania holds that MEDDPICC — the widely used B2B sales methodology acronym — is generic, ordering cancellation of the trademark registration that had been used to take down social media posts and book listings.
Federal Circuit affirms that two augmented-reality patents asserted against Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite are invalid as abstract ideas under § 101.
Federal Circuit revives one patent claim against YouTube’s Siberia Content ID system while affirming two others invalid for indefiniteness.
Judge Gilstrap finds that Headwater Research LLC — which knew of Verizon’s patent infringement in 2017 but waited six years to file suit in order to maximize its damages window — engaged in conduct so inconsistent with an intent to enforce its rights that equity bars enforcement entirely, wiping out a $175 million jury verdict. The court holds that implied waiver survives the Supreme Court’s SCA Hygiene decision, which abolished laches, because waiver goes to liability rather than damages.
A Northern District of California court ruled that litigation funder Legalist, Inc. is not liable for attorney’s fees after the plaintiff’s trade secret case was dismissed as time-barred, holding that reviewing and approving only the initial complaint does not constitute sufficient control over the litigation.
After prevailing in a $25.6 million copyright case over CoComelon character infringement, Moonbug sought $933K in additional fees. The court denied appellate fees — finding BabyBus’s curated appeal was objectively reasonable — but awarded $280K for extraordinary judgment enforcement work necessitated by BabyBus’s use of a shell entity to divert funds.
In a dispute over PrepMod, a COVID-19 vaccination scheduling platform, the court ruled that the developer’s copyright infringement counterclaim survives but statutory damages and attorney’s fees are barred under 17 U.S.C. § 412 because the infringement began two years before registration.
A federal court denied a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the launch of California’s AwareCA wildfire alert platform, finding that the maker of the ‘Wildfire Aware’ app waited too long to seek emergency relief and failed to show likelihood of confusion.