Woodway USA, Inc. v. LifeCORE Fitness, Inc. — Ambiguous Prosecution Statements Did Not Narrow Treadmill Claims
The Federal Circuit vacated noninfringement summary judgment because ambiguous prosecution statements were not a clear disclaimer.
The Federal Circuit vacated noninfringement summary judgment because ambiguous prosecution statements were not a clear disclaimer.
The Federal Circuit affirmed because an IPR petition’s headings did not substitute for developed obviousness arguments for each challenged claim.
The Federal Circuit vacated PTAB rulings because the Board required a skilled artisan personally to fabricate a claimed integrated circuit.
The Federal Circuit affirmed that challenged inkjet-printhead patent claims were obvious over a combination of prior-art references.
A California federal court dismissed Google’s DMCA claims because anti-scraping technology must control access to copyrighted material with the copyright owner’s authority.
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.
Federal Circuit affirms PTAB finding that claims in Woodway’s curved-running-belt manual treadmill patent are obvious over 1970s–1990s prior art, rejecting narrow claim construction and commercial success arguments.
The Supreme Court of Canada rules 7-2 that methods of medical treatment remain unpatentable in Canada, but upholds Janssen’s dosing-regimen patent for INVEGA SUSTENNA because the specific schedule does not require professional medical judgment to implement.
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.
The ITC institutes Investigation No. 337-TA-1511 against Samsung, Google, NVIDIA, Broadcom, and Supermicro based on Netlist’s HBM and DDR5 memory patents, seeking exclusion orders that could disrupt AI hardware supply chains.
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.
The Federal Circuit affirmed two PTAB inter partes review decisions invalidating all claims of Slingshot Printing’s inkjet-printer temperature-sensor patents as obvious over a combination of prior art references.
The Federal Circuit vacated a $12.7 million copyright damages award against the government for unauthorized copying of healthcare interoperability software, holding that courts misapplied the ‘book of wisdom’ by considering unforeseeable events and that punitive willful-infringement damages are unavailable under 28 U.S.C. § 1498(b).
The EU General Court ruled that ‘OPENAI’ cannot be registered as an EU trademark because it descriptively conveys ‘openly accessible artificial intelligence’ — a potentially far-reaching ruling for AI companies seeking trademark protection in Europe.
The Second Circuit affirmed an arbitral award giving Acorda only $16.5M of the ~$82M in post-expiration royalties it paid on an Ampyra MS drug patent, holding Brulotte/Kimble do not mandate full restitution and that New York’s Voluntary-Pay Doctrine bars recovery of royalties paid without contemporaneous protest.
The Federal Circuit affirmed three PTAB decisions preserving CPC Patent Technologies’ biometric smart-lock patents, holding that ASSA ABLOY failed to prove obviousness under its own proposed claim construction and forfeited a Bianco-only invalidity theory by raising it too late.
The Ninth Circuit reversed a $40 million jury verdict against XP Power for stealing Comet Technologies’ semiconductor manufacturing trade secrets, finding the district court improperly placed the burden of proof on the defendant.
The Tenth Circuit reversed dismissal of Lanham Act false advertising claims, holding that Hill’s Pet Nutrition’s website statements and veterinary education materials could constitute actionable commercial speech when they allegedly disparaged grain-free competitors—and that the “establishment claim doctrine” allows courts to probe whether cited science actually supports the marketing claims made.
The Federal Circuit vacated a PTAB decision upholding Parus Holdings’ voice-browsing patent against Google’s IPR challenge, holding that the Board improperly analyzed prior art in isolation rather than in combination, secretly construed a claim term without notice to Google, and failed to explain its inconsistency with earlier IPR rulings on related Parus patents.
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.
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.
The Federal Circuit reversed a preliminary injunction in a patent dispute over insulated truck cargo doors, holding that the accused ‘sandwich’ panel door raised substantial questions of non-infringement under three separate claim limitations and that the patentee failed to show irreparable harm.
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.
The Fourth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction against a Dutch software company’s use of an American company’s brand and trade secrets, holding that Abitron Austria’s conduct-focused test for the territorial reach of U.S. IP law is satisfied where the defendant directly targeted U.S. customers online.
The Fourth Circuit vacated a practice-bar suspension imposed on a Womble Bond attorney in a cross-border trademark and trade-secret case, holding that civil contempt requires clear and convincing evidence of harm from the specific contemnor’s noncompliance.
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.
The England and Wales Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by Altana Wealth and Brevent Advisory, upholding the High Court’s finding that they misused Illiquidx’s confidential information—a strategy for creating a sanctions-compliant Venezuelan debt fund—when they launched a competing fund after their joint venture collapsed.
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.
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB’s finding that cloud-gaming method claims were obvious over prior art—while clarifying the scope of the mandate rule and confirming that a tribunal on remand may reach claim limitations left unaddressed in the original appeal.
The Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s ex parte reexamination finding that claim 1 of Magnolia’s blood sequestration device patent is anticipated by a 1999 Brannon prior art reference, rejecting Magnolia’s arguments about timing and configuration requirements.
The CJEU held that state-of-the-art geo-blocking prevents a “communication to the public” in a protected member state, and that the possibility of VPN circumvention does not defeat that conclusion — clearing a path for open-access digital editions of historically significant works across EU borders.
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 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.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a trade secret misappropriation lawsuit filed by a dissolved Louisiana LLC, holding that under FRCP 17(b)(3) the relevant law is the state where suit is filed—Texas—and Texas law does not allow dissolved entities to bring new claims.
The Federal Circuit affirmed invalidity of Wyeth’s lung cancer treatment patents after holding that the specifications failed to enable skilled artisans to determine an appropriate daily dosage for patients without undue experimentation, erasing a $107.5 million jury verdict.
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.
India’s Bombay High Court ordered Google, Meta, and X to remove approximately 275 deepfake videos, AI-generated chatbot personas, and morphed images exploiting actress Preity Zinta’s name and likeness — marking one of India’s first significant judicial interventions against AI-generated personality-rights violations.
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.
The U.S. ITC’s limited exclusion order against Innoscience’s legacy GaN semiconductor products became final on July 7, 2026 after the Presidential Review Period expired without intervention — though Innoscience’s current product line, redesigned to avoid the ‘481 patent, remains freely importable.
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 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 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 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.
The Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for four former employees, holding that Wilbur-Ellis Company’s trade secret claims failed because it never specifically identified what trade secrets were taken or how — and that the coordinated mass departure to a competitor did not, without more, breach the employees’ duty of loyalty.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for MillerKnoll, holding that the Nelson family authorized the company’s ownership of the iconic George Nelson Bubble Lamp trademarks through a 2006 royalty agreement — and in a precedential ruling, confirmed that authorization defeats unregistered trademark infringement claims under Lanham Act § 1125(a).
The Federal Circuit affirms invalidation of two Dental Monitoring patents covering deep-learning dental arch image analysis, holding that applying generic machine learning to a new domain — orthodontic imaging — does not supply the “inventive concept” required for patent eligibility under § 101.
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.
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.