Federal district court decisions
A federal court approved Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright class settlement, finding its per-work relief, notice, claims process, and limited release fair and adequate.
A Florida federal court adopts a magistrate’s recommendation and enters a $14.6 million statutory damages judgment against 73 online sellers of counterfeit Trump-branded merchandise under the Lanham Act’s counterfeiting provisions.
A federal jury in Waco, Texas awards Viasat $229 million in damages after finding Kioxia’s NAND flash memory products infringed U.S. Patent No. 8,615,700, covering forward error correction with parallel detection for flash memories.
Judge Komitee awards Van Leeuwen $23,785,000 in disgorgement of Rebel Creamery’s profits and issues a permanent packaging redesign injunction after finding that Rebel’s ice cream packaging infringed Van Leeuwen’s distinctive minimalist trade dress under the Lanham Act and New York law.
A Western District of Texas judge ruled that LzLabs GmbH’s Software Defined Mainframe technology infringes five IBM patents covering mainframe instruction translation and emulation techniques, handing IBM a significant win in its effort to protect the proprietary architecture underpinning its multi-billion-dollar mainframe franchise.
A Northern District of California judge awarded Netflix $3 million in attorney fees after finding that plaintiff Lauri Valjakka and his counsel committed fraud by asserting ownership of U.S. Patent No. 8,495,167 while concealing a Finnish court’s prior determination that Valjakka did not own the patent — rendering the entire suit objectively baseless from its inception.
Apple filed a blockbuster trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI, io Products, and two former senior Apple engineers, alleging OpenAI systematically recruited Apple employees to steal confidential hardware engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain secrets for its AI device program.
Judge Corley dismissed Swedish music company Epidemic Sound’s copyright infringement suit against Meta, finding it failed to plausibly allege that Meta’s content was substantially similar to Epidemic Sound’s protected works.
Following a $102 million jury verdict in April, Manhattan federal Judge Jennifer Rochon issued a permanent injunction barring art publisher Michael McKenzie from reproducing, marketing, or selling works by the late artist Robert Indiana, including his iconic LOVE imagery.
A California federal court dismissed contributory copyright claims against eBay, holding that responding to takedown notices is sufficient and that platforms need not implement permanent staydown systems to avoid secondary liability.
A Northern District of California federal judge partially confirmed an arbitration award protecting Tesla’s dry battery electrode trade secrets, upholding a narrow injunction blocking supplier Matthews International from selling certain battery equipment, while remanding other portions of the award.
A Southern District of New York judge dismissed a freelance artist’s copyright claims that Hachette used AI to replicate his commissioned book covers for Sandra Brown novels, finding he failed to establish substantial similarity between his artwork and Hachette’s redesigned covers.
Judge Thomas Kleeh dismissed Amgen’s Walker Process antitrust counterclaims in Regeneron’s patent suit over Eylea biosimilars, finding Amgen failed to plausibly allege that Regeneron knowingly made false statements to the USPTO to obtain its blocking patent.
A Central District of California judge granted Roland’s motion to dismiss, holding that Behringer parent Empower Tribe’s polyphonic guitar tuner patent claims are directed to an abstract idea and lack the inventive concept needed to survive § 101 scrutiny.
A Northern District of California judge dismissed all claims against Meta under Section 230, holding that algorithmic amplification of third-party posts does not override the statutory immunity—algorithms create liability only when they generate content, not when they surface it.
A Western District of Texas jury delivered a split verdict against Align Technology in its Invisalign patent suit against ClearCorrect, finding all four asserted patents on multilayer dental aligners infringed but invalid—leaving Align without patent protection against its largest clear-aligner competitor.
A Pennsylvania federal court dismissed Pearl’s trade dress claim for its marching band drum carrier design without prejudice, holding that Pearl’s own utility patent on the same design features provided strong evidence of functionality, defeating trade dress protection.
A federal magistrate judge recommended $14.6 million in statutory damages against online retailers who sold counterfeit merchandise bearing TRUMP and MAGA trademarks after they defaulted by failing to respond to the lawsuit.
A California federal judge dismissed a seven-year patent infringement lawsuit against E. & J. Gallo Winery, finding that the winery’s irrigation systems do not satisfy the scope of the asserted patents on vineyard monitoring technology.
A Manhattan federal judge permanently dismisses Loyal-T Systems’ patent infringement suit against American Express, ruling that the accused Membership Rewards and Plenti loyalty programs do not infringe patents requiring a loyalty platform “separate and apart” from a payment card.
Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed with prejudice a poet’s $25 million copyright suit against Taylor Swift, holding that the alleged overlaps — common themes, ubiquitous metaphors, and isolated phrases — amount at most to unprotectable ideas rather than original expression.
A federal judge dismissed with prejudice a Florida poet’s copyright infringement lawsuit against Taylor Swift, finding the plaintiff’s poems lack protectable expression and the works are not substantially similar.
Magistrate Judge Payne issued three pre-trial Daubert orders in Smart RF’s patent suit against AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile, allowing a damages expert’s comparable-license methodology to stand while partially excluding an invalidity expert for untimely disclosures.
A federal judge denied summary judgment on all sides in the sprawling copyright lawsuit alleging that the dembow rhythm underlying over 1,800 reggaeton songs was stolen from Jamaican producers Steely and Clevie’s 1989 ‘Fish Market’ recording.
In a sweeping pretrial conference order, Judge Rodney Gilstrap ruled on 23 contested motions in Stratasys’s 3D-printing patent case against Bambu Lab — letting most patents advance to trial while striking key portions of Stratasys’s damages theory.
A California federal court dismissed all copyright claims against YouTube — without invoking the DMCA safe harbor — while allowing a pro se author’s direct infringement claims against the YouTube channel operators who narrated his book chapter-by-chapter to proceed.
A Colorado federal judge grants Amgen a preliminary injunction blocking the state’s first-in-the-nation Enbrel price cap, finding that capping the price of a patented drug is not a permissible option for states under federal patent law.
In the fourth trial of the OMG Girlz doll case, a Los Angeles jury finds MGA Entertainment owes no punitive damages to T.I. and Tiny Harris — leaving the prior $17.8 million compensatory award intact while rejecting the bid for up to $125 million more.
A Delaware federal judge dismissed Signant Health’s DTSA trade secret claims against Definium Therapeutics, finding that identifying confidential LSD-trial technology only in broad, categorical terms — without pinpointing the specific information allegedly misappropriated — is insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
A magistrate judge recommended a $68 million default judgment against 26 defendants who operated a large-scale scheme to flood the U.S. supply chain with counterfeit Biktarvy and Descovy HIV medications bearing Gilead’s registered trademarks.
A Western District of Washington court denied Zillow’s motion to dismiss IBM’s single sign-on authentication patent claim (U.S. Patent No. 7,631,346), sending the case toward trial and potentially exposing platforms using federated login to similar claims.
A Delaware federal court held that HP, Dell, and ASUS acquired implied licenses to LiTL’s portable computer patents through a component supplier’s express license, granting summary judgment for the laptop makers under the legal estoppel doctrine.
A Delaware court ruled that HP, Dell, and ASUS hold implied patent licenses through their unnamed component supplier’s settlement with LiTL LLC, granting summary judgment of noninfringement on all six asserted portable-computer design patents.
A Manhattan federal judge denies Emojico’s trademark TRO against Schedule A e-commerce defendants, finding the accused products — shower curtains, earbuds, karaoke machines — look nothing like Emojico’s stylized smiley-face marks.
A Northern California judge denied Uber’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that LBT IP’s GPS location-tracking patents — covering satellite-impaired tracking methods and multi-provider mapping interfaces — are directed to genuine technological improvements rather than abstract ideas under Alice.
An Eastern District of Texas jury awarded Vasu Holdings $3 million after finding Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones infringed a wireless roaming patent, while clearing Samsung on two other asserted patents.
A Delaware federal judge found that supplement maker Elysium Health failed to prove inequitable conduct or unclean hands by W.R. Grace in connection with nicotinamide riboside patents — leaving intact a $3.6 million willful infringement verdict.
A federal magistrate judge in the Northern District of California ruled that multimedia rights companies serving university athletic departments are not categorically exempt from College Sports Commission review under the $2.78 billion House v. NCAA name, image, and likeness settlement.
A federal judge issued a TRO on June 26, 2026, blocking a China-based phishing-as-a-service network that weaponized Google Gemini to build fake banking and government websites, finding the ring ‘threatened the security of the internet’ and infringed Google’s Lanham Act trademarks.
Authors and publishers reached a $1.5 billion class-action settlement with Anthropic over its use of pirated book databases to train Claude, the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history. The deal — covering some 482,000 titles at roughly $3,100 per work — is awaiting final court approval.
A Louisiana federal judge denied Total90 LLC’s preliminary injunction bid against Nike, holding that a lapsed trademark registration does not constitute abandonment when the registrant continues active commercial use — a reminder that trademark rights flow from use, not paperwork.
A D.C. federal judge refused to dismiss the NRA’s trademark claims against its own charitable arm, ruling that the NRA’s cease-and-desist letter plausibly revoked the consent it had previously given the Foundation to use the NRA name and marks.
A California district court dismissed NCII claims against Cloudflare under Section 230, holding that a content delivery network is protected as an access software provider even when it lacks the ability to remove content from a third-party platform like Facebook.
A federal jury in the Eastern District of Texas awarded Aspen Networks $190 million, finding that Verizon Wireless infringed U.S. Patent No. 8,009,554 covering the core technology enabling seamless Wi-Fi/cellular call handoff (VoWi-Fi).
Judge Noreika invalidates Novartis subsidiary’s patents covering Lutathera (lutetium-177 dotatate) cancer drug, finding all asserted claims invalid under the on-sale bar — clearing a potential path for generic competition.
Judge Albright denies Acer’s post-trial JMOL motion, upholding a $10.3 million jury verdict for SVV Technology Innovations on LED display technology patents covering gaming monitors.
A federal judge in Delaware denied Guardant Health’s post-trial motions seeking to overturn or modify the jury’s $83.4 million verdict for willful infringement of University of Washington duplex consensus sequencing patents exclusively licensed to TwinStrand Biosciences.
A C.D. Cal. magistrate judge partially granted Midjourney’s motion to compel, requiring the defendant studios to produce some data about their own AI use while denying broader requests as irrelevant or work-product privileged — a significant discovery development in a major AI copyright case.
A Central District of California court granted summary judgment for a fashion blogger who used a train photo found on Google Images, finding all four fair use factors weighed in her favor and rejecting the plaintiff’s CMI (§ 1202) claim as well.
Judge Gregory Williams of the District of Delaware denied GlaxoSmithKline’s motions to dismiss prosecution laches defenses asserted by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, finding the defendants plausibly alleged that GSK unreasonably delayed patent prosecution for over a decade and then broadened mRNA vaccine claims only after its rivals’ COVID vaccine technology became public.