Daily IP/AI court coverage report for April 27, 2026 (Monday). This page combines results from two pipeline runs today — a morning run and an afternoon review pass with comprehensive web searches and manual reclassification.
Summary Stats
- New posts published today: 1 (EscapeX IP v. Google, from morning run)
- Posts published this weekend (backfill): 1 (Harvest Aid v. Wax Works, backfilled from April 22)
- Pipeline ingestion sources run: 20 (all successful, across 2 runs)
- Non-IP cases reviewed and classified (Step 2.4): 10 (all confirmed non-IP)
- Misclassified IP cases reclassified to non-IP: 9 (social security, immigration, Uber sexual assault, environmental, mortgage, bankruptcy, antitrust, RICO)
- Federal Circuit dispositions logged: 1 (SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, nonprecedential order)
- Japan IP High Court case noted (insufficient details to publish): 1 (thermoplastic resin patent)
- Sitemap post count: 678
Posts Published Today
- EscapeX IP v. Google — Supreme Court Lets Stand $254K Sanctions Against Patent Plaintiff for Frivolous YouTube Music Suit — SCOTUS cert denial, April 27, 2026 (Docket 25-1114). Leaves in place the Federal Circuit’s affirmance of § 1927 sanctions over a meritless patent suit.
- Harvest Aid v. Wax Works — Ninth Circuit Vacates Denial of New Trial in Christian Film Copyright Case Over Rigid Application of Meet-and-Confer Rule — 9th Cir. nonprecedential memorandum disposition, April 22, 2026. Originally missed by the ingestion pipeline; backfilled today.
Federal Circuit Dispositions Logged
- 26-1158: SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms, Inc. — Order (nonprecedential), April 27, 2026. Origin: PTO. Added to the April 2026 dispositions page.
Notable Foreign Case Identified (Not Published)
- Japan IP High Court — Thermoplastic Resin Patent (display materials) — April 27, 2026. Court canceled a JPO decision upholding the patent, finding the invention obvious and performance benefits not convincingly proven. Full case details are behind the MLex paywall and insufficient for a proper summary post. Will revisit if details become publicly available.
Courts Searched — Federal
| Court | Method | New IP/AI Opinions Found |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. Supreme Court | Pipeline (us_scotus) + web search | 1 (EscapeX IP v. Google cert denial) |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit | Pipeline (us_cafc) + cafc.uscourts.gov check | 1 order (SitNet v. Meta, nonprecedential — logged to dispositions) |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 1st Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca1) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca2) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca3) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 4th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca4) + PDF review of 251150 | 0 (Navarro v. SafeSport — not IP) |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca5) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca6) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 8th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca8) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca9) | 0 new today (Harvest Aid backfilled from April 22) |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 10th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca10) | 0 |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit | Pipeline (us_ca11) + CourtListener PDF review | 0 (StarPro v. Polyloom — antitrust/Sherman Act, not IP) |
| U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit | Pipeline (us_cadc) | 0 |
| U.S. PTAB | Pipeline + USPTO data portal + web search | 0 new |
| U.S. ITC | Web search (IPWatchdog, news aggregators) | 0 new |
| U.S. District Courts | Pipeline (us_courts_news, us_govinfo_uscourts) | 0 new opinions (numerous docket filings ingested but no substantive IP opinions identified) |
Courts Searched — State
| Court | Method | New IP/AI Opinions Found |
|---|---|---|
| California | Pipeline (us_state_ca) + web search | 0 |
| New York | Web search | 0 |
| Texas | Pipeline (us_state_tx) + web search | 0 |
| Delaware | Pipeline (us_state_de) + web search | 0 |
| Illinois | Pipeline (us_state_il) + web search | 0 |
| Florida | Web search | 0 |
State courts searched today: California, New York, Texas, Delaware, Illinois, Florida — no IP/AI opinions identified.
Courts Searched — International
| Court | Method | New IP/AI Opinions Found |
|---|---|---|
| UK Courts (IPEC, Patents Court) | Web search | 0 (Tesla v. InterDigital UKSC hearing underway, no decision yet) |
| EU Courts (CJEU) | Web search | 0 |
| EPO Boards of Appeal | Web search | 0 |
| Federal Court of Canada | Pipeline (ca_scc) + web search | 0 |
| Federal Court of Australia | Web search | 0 from today (recent FCA trademark decisions from earlier April noted) |
| Japan IP High Court | Web search (MLex) | 1 noted (resin patent obviated — details behind paywall, not published) |
| Unified Patent Court (UPC) | Web search | 0 new from today |
Foreign courts searched: UK, EU/CJEU, EPO, Canada, Australia, Japan, UPC — one Japan IP High Court decision identified (thermoplastic resin patent) but insufficient details available for publication.
Search Queries Run (Web Supplemental)
- “federal circuit opinion April 27 2026”
- “PTAB decision April 27 2026”
- “patent ruling April 27 2026”
- “copyright opinion ruling April 27 2026”
- “trademark decision ruling April 27 2026”
- “trade secret ruling April 27 2026”
- “section 101 patent eligibility ruling April 2026”
- “section 230 ruling April 27 2026”
- “AI intellectual property ruling opinion April 27 2026”
- “ITC opinion ruling April 27 2026 patent”
- “right of publicity ruling opinion April 2026”
- site:ipwatchdog.com April 27 2026
- site:patentlyo.com April 2026
- State court searches: California, New York, Texas, Delaware, Illinois, Florida
- Foreign court searches: UK IPEC/Patents Court, CJEU, EPO BoA, Federal Court of Canada, Federal Court of Australia, Japan IP High Court, UPC
- CourtListener date-bounded search (blocked by 403)
- IP law opinion ruling decision “April 27, 2026” (IP Fray cross-reference)
Reclassification Actions Taken
- 10 non_ip cases reviewed (Step 2.4): All confirmed non-IP (immigration, criminal, civil rights, contract, family law, general civil)
- 9 ip cases reclassified to non_ip: Social Security case, Refugee Center v. Mullin (immigration), In re Uber Sexual Assault (2x), Conservation Council v. Hawaiian Electric (environmental), EXINOR v. Freedom Mortgage (mortgage), Maeder (bankruptcy), StarPro v. Polyloom (antitrust/Sherman Act), Grant v. Hilton (RICO/civil rights)
- 1 Federal Circuit order assigned to dispositions page: SitNet LLC v. Meta Platforms (26-1158, nonprecedential order)
Courts Not Searchable in This Run
| Court | Reason |
|---|---|
| U.S. Court of Appeals, 7th Circuit | Source not yet wired into ingestion pipeline (no us_ca7 source) |
| Court of Federal Claims | Not in pipeline |
| Court of International Trade | Not in pipeline |
| CourtListener | Date-bounded search returned 403 (access blocked) |
| India / China / Korea / Germany / France / Brazil / Mexico | No pipeline sources; English-language IP rulings limited and none new surfaced |
Notes for Tomorrow
- Federal Circuit opinion calendar: monitor cafc.uscourts.gov for Tuesday April 28 releases; weekly opinion volume tends to cluster Tuesday–Thursday.
- Supreme Court: Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin Pharma (24-889) — oral argument Wednesday April 29. Watch for same-day coverage.
- UK Supreme Court: Tesla v. InterDigital FRAND hearing is ongoing as of April 27. Decision may follow in coming weeks.
- Japan IP High Court resin patent case: Revisit if MLex details become available or the judgment is posted to the IP High Court’s English-language database.
- Remaining govinfo IP queue (~25 cases): Most are district court docket filings without opinions. These will be revisited as substantive opinions are issued.
Goldman-Blog Historical Backfill (Added April 27, 2026)
An afternoon backfill pass scanned Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog across the past year for IP/AI cases that the court-by-court ingestion pipeline never picked up (mostly district-court opinions and circuit decisions outside the Federal Circuit’s RSS feed). The following nine summaries were published today, dated to their original decision dates:
- New York Times v. Microsoft & OpenAI — S.D.N.Y., April 4, 2025. Motion-to-dismiss survival on contributory copyright, § 1202(b)(1) DMCA, and federal trademark dilution claims against AI training.
- Walters v. OpenAI — Ga. Super. Ct., May 19, 2025. First substantive ChatGPT-hallucination defamation ruling; OpenAI wins summary judgment.
- Garcia v. Character Technologies — M.D. Fla., May 21, 2025. AI-chatbot wrongful-death theories survive Rule 12; product-vs-content distinction adopted.
- Yuga Labs v. Ripps — 9th Cir., July 23, 2025. NFTs are “goods” under the Lanham Act; trademark and ACPA SJ reversed.
- Trump v. Simon & Schuster — S.D.N.Y., July 18, 2025. Trump Tapes copyright suit dismissed; interview recordings are unitary works authored by the recorder.
- Penn State v. Vintage Brand — M.D. Pa., October 31, 2025. $28K trademark verdict upheld; initial interest confusion treated as a lens, not a standalone claim.
- Ziff Davis v. OpenAI — S.D.N.Y. (Stein, J.), December 15, 2025. Robots.txt is not a DMCA § 1201 technological measure.
- Harrington v. Pinterest — N.D. Cal., January 5, 2026. DMCA § 512(c) safe harbor extends to UGC embedded in email and push notifications.
- Vetter v. Resnik — 5th Cir., January 12, 2026. U.S. copyright termination recaptures worldwide rights; departure from territoriality consensus.
The Goldman blog is registered as the commentary_eric_goldman source in the daily ingestion pipeline (Step 2.6 of the live cron prompt processes its leads as commentary tips that point to underlying cases). Today’s pass was a one-time historical backfill across the past year of posts; ongoing Goldman coverage continues via the daily pipeline.
Updated sitemap post count: 689.