Federal district court decisions
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.
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.
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.
A federal judge denied former Google engineer Linwei Ding’s motion for a new trial on convictions for stealing more than 2,000 pages of Google AI trade secrets and committing economic espionage, rejecting his claim that prosecutors improperly excluded jurors of Chinese descent.
A Northern California jury found Quince’s shearling boot infringed Deckers’ design patent on the UGG Classic Ultra Mini Boot upper — but simultaneously invalidated the patent as obvious in light of a crowded prior-art field, leaving Deckers without relief.
A federal judge dismissed xAI’s trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI with prejudice, holding that routine interviewing of a prospective employee does not constitute inducement to reveal trade secrets and that xAI failed to plausibly allege OpenAI knew any confidential information was disclosed.
A Northern District of California judge denied Meta’s motion to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by adult-film producer Strike 3 Holdings, finding sufficient evidence that Meta systematically downloaded thousands of films for AI training data.
Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California granted BMW a temporary restraining order blocking Zync Inc. from proceeding with an ITC trade secret investigation, finding BMW likely to succeed in enforcing a contractual forum selection clause designating German courts as the exclusive forum for disputes under their infotainment technology NDA.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley of the Northern District of California dismissed TDK Corporation of Japan from a piezoelectric MEMS patent infringement suit, holding that conclusory stream-of-commerce allegations were insufficient to establish personal jurisdiction and that plaintiff lacked a legitimate basis for naming the Japanese parent company as a defendant.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California awarded Favored Tech $2,208,115.77 in attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285 after finding that P2I Ltd.’s nano-coating patent infringement case was exceptional due to bad faith litigation conduct.
A Delaware jury unanimously found that Amgen’s Teneobio subsidiary willfully infringed Harbour Antibodies’ foundational patent on transgenic mouse platforms for generating fully human monoclonal antibodies, awarding $20.2 million in damages that could be trebled to $60.6 million for willfulness.
A Delaware federal jury found that TVision Insights did not infringe Nielsen’s patent covering digital-signature technology used to identify audio content for television audience measurement, handing TVision a trial victory in a long-running patent dispute over audience-tracking methods.
A Delaware federal jury finds Amgen and its subsidiary Teneobio willfully infringed a foundational patent covering the production of heavy chain-only antibodies in transgenic mice, awarding $20.2 million in damages — the full amount requested by the plaintiffs.
A Southern District of New York judge dismissed a trademark infringement suit by New York radio host Maurice Watts against Amazon Studios over use of the name ‘The Love Zone’ in Amazon’s crime thriller series ‘Cross,’ finding no evidence that the fictional reference misled viewers about the source of the real radio show.
A Virginia federal judge denied Altria Group and NJOY’s motion for a preliminary injunction to halt an ITC patent investigation over vaping device patents, rejecting the companies’ argument that the ITC’s administrative law judge appointment process is unconstitutional.
After surviving Meta’s Section 230 defense by pointing to AI-generated ad content, plaintiffs find their state law claims preempted by SLUSA — because the same theory that defeated Section 230 proves the fraud was ‘in connection with’ securities purchases.
A W.D. Wash. judge denies Ravensburger’s bid for nearly $3.8 million in attorney fees after defeating Upper Deck’s copyright suit over the Disney Lorcana trading card game, finding Upper Deck’s suit was neither unreasonable nor frivolous despite its failure.
Judge Jennifer L. Hall of the District of Delaware denied Ferring’s post-trial motions, preserving a $25 million jury verdict in favor of Finch Therapeutics and the University of Minnesota on three fecal microbiota transplant patents covering Ferring’s Rebyota product.
A Northern District of Illinois judge granted Ty Inc.’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking Pop Mart from selling its ‘Pucky’ collectible figurine line, finding that Pop Mart’s products likely infringe and dilute Ty’s famous Beanie Baby trademark and trade dress.
A New Jersey federal court allowed WinView’s direct patent infringement claims against FanDuel to proceed, while dismissing with prejudice the indirect and willful infringement counts for failure to plead pre-suit knowledge — the same result previously reached in a parallel WinView case against DraftKings.
A federal judge in San Francisco severed a copyright lawsuit by six authors against Anthropic and five other AI companies, holding there was no conspiracy among the competing LLM developers to justify joint litigation, while transferring the OpenAI claims to the New York AI copyright MDL.
A North Carolina federal judge dismissed a patent infringement suit against Epic Games (Fortnite) with prejudice, holding that U.S. Patent 10,142,810 — claiming a method for managing communications across services using a single user identifier — was directed to an abstract idea and lacked any inventive concept under Alice.
Judge Edward Chen of the N.D. Cal. granted Apple summary judgment, holding that Neonode’s foundational swipe gesture patent (U.S. 8,095,879) is invalid for lack of written description under 35 U.S.C. § 112.
A federal judge in the Central District of California granted judgment on the pleadings to a Twitch streamer who livestreamed a nearly four-hour critical reaction to a YouTube documentary, holding that her real-time commentary, criticism, and mockery constituted fair use as a matter of law.
Case Overview Shoals Technologies Group, LLC v. Voltage, LLC and Ningbo Voltage Smart Production Co., No. 1:25-cv-00026 (M.D.N.C. June 5,
Case: Joby Aero, Inc. v. Archer Aviation Inc., No. 25-cv-10703-SVK (N.D. Cal. June 5, 2026) Court: United States District Court,
Case: NETGEAR, Inc. v. Choice Electronics Inc., No. 25-cv-02601-RS (N.D. Cal. June 5, 2026) Judge: Chief Judge Richard Seeborg Opinion:
A Northern District of California court allowed Joby Aero’s core DTSA claim over a stolen real estate exclusivity agreement to proceed while dismissing all of Archer Aviation’s counterclaims as impermissible shotgun pleadings.
NEC Corporation v. Anker Innovations Technology Co., Ltd. et al, No. 2:24-CV-00720-JRG (E.D. Tex. June 4, 2026) (Gilstrap, J.) Download
Case: ProSync Technology Group, LLC v. Miller, No. SAG-26-1436 (D. Md. June 4, 2026) Court: United States District Court for
A federal judge in the Western District of Washington denied a joint motion to enter a consent judgment and permanent injunction settling Eli Lilly’s trademark claims over its Mounjaro and Zepbound weight-loss drugs, finding the proposed decree and injunction “overbroad.”
A California federal court granted a preliminary injunction barring Chinese wellness device maker Xiamen Olymate from using the “OlyLife” brand, finding the name creates a false connection to the Olympic Games in violation of the Olympic and Amateur Sports Act.
Starr™ v. Google LLC, 2026 WL 1603313 (W.D. Tex. June 3, 2026) The Western District of Texas granted Google’s motion
In Anonymous Media Research Holdings LLC v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., No. 2:23-cv-00439 (E.D. Tex.), Judge Rodney Gilstrap denied Samsung’s
A Missouri federal court dismissed with prejudice all nine claims by a pro se plaintiff who alleged ChatGPT misappropriated her ’emotional-interaction model,’ holding that voluntarily inputting information into an AI tool defeats trade secret, CFAA, and privacy claims.
A Virginia federal court granted a temporary restraining order blocking political news site NOTUS from rebranding as ‘The Star,’ finding the Washington Star newspaper demonstrated a likelihood of trademark confusion.
A New Jersey federal court dismissed copyright claims against Netflix’s Boy Scouts abuse documentary, holding that factual content and common documentary techniques like archival footage, survivor interviews, and somber lighting are not protectable expression.
A Northern District of California court denied Google’s motion to dismiss a direct infringement claim over containerization technology patents, finding that whether Google Kubernetes Engine and Cloud Run satisfy the patent’s filtering requirement must await claim construction.
A federal court ordered two fake “Fisher Investments Europe” websites shut down and their domains transferred, finding cybersquatting liability under the ACPA and ruling that in rem domain actions require no showing of bad faith.