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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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.
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 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.
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.
The Ninth Circuit ruled that a California federal judge applied local meet-and-confer rules too rigidly when denying a new trial motion in a willful copyright infringement case over the unauthorized DVD distribution of a Christian film.
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.
After the Third Circuit vacated prior default judgments and remanded for reconsideration, the district court reinstated default judgment against Chinese companies selling counterfeit kitchen products, finding personal jurisdiction established through Amazon and AliExpress sales into the forum.
In a Markman claim construction order, the District of New Jersey construed nine disputed terms from two patents covering decorative lighting strings with spaced bulbs, setting the stage for infringement and validity analysis.
A Colorado federal court dismissed trademark and IP claims against Penn Entertainment and its Ameristar Casino subsidiary for the second time, finding that MAO Gaming’s complaint still failed to clearly distinguish which defendant was liable for the unauthorized use of the STREAK® blackjack brand.
The Federal Circuit dismissed a §101 patent eligibility appeal as moot after discovering the parties’ settlement agreement gave the defendant a $100 option to license the challenged patent — an amount so untethered from the patent’s value that it created no real case or controversy.
A federal judge in San Francisco denied Databricks’ motion to dismiss copyright infringement claims alleging the company used pirated books to train its MPT and DBRX large language models, finding the authors sufficiently tied their works to the AI models.
The Federal Circuit affirmed PTAB decisions invalidating Katana Silicon’s semiconductor stacking patents after holding that “adhesion layer” means any layer that adheres, not only a pre-formed solid sheet, bringing the claims within the scope of prior art.
Judge Donald Nugent dismissed all claims — negligence, strict liability, concealment, and misrepresentation — against Discord brought on behalf of a minor sexually exploited by an adult user, holding that the plaintiff’s “defective design” theory was a repackaged demand that Discord moderate or block third-party communications, which Section 230 forecloses.
Judge Timothy Brooks granted NetChoice’s preliminary-injunction motion against Arkansas Act 900, the General Assembly’s second attempt to regulate minors’ use of social media after the same court enjoined the predecessor Act 689 in 2025. Act 900’s addictive-practices ban, mandatory notification curfew, default privacy settings, and parental dashboard provisions all fall under First Amendment scrutiny.
A federal judge partially dismissed Eli Lilly’s Lanham Act false advertising claims against telehealth company Mochi Health over its marketing of compounded tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro and Zepbound, while allowing some claims to proceed.