Intellectual Property

  • March 27, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Orders New Trial In Roland Drum Kit Patent Dispute

    The Federal Circuit says a jury in Miami will have to take another look at a nearly decadelong fight over electric drumming patents, deciding on Thursday to wipe out the entirety of a $4.6 million verdict ​​the Japanese audio tech giant Roland Corp. won against a U.S.-based rival.

  • March 27, 2025

    Dua Lipa Beats Claim 'Levitating' Ripped Off 1979 Disco Song

    Grammy-winning singer Dua Lipa's chart-topping song "Levitating" did not infringe a 1979 disco song, a New York federal judge ruled Thursday, saying a combination of a descending chord progression and musical note in the older work wasn't protectable under copyright law.

  • March 27, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Revives Recor's PTAB Challenge To Medtronic IP

    The Federal Circuit on Thursday revived medical technology company Recor Medical's challenge to a Medtronic Ireland Manufacturing patent on a way to treat heart and renal failure, telling the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to once again review the fight.

  • March 27, 2025

    Mercedes Scores USPTO Review Of PTAB Loss

    The acting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director wants a review of an administrative patent board ruling that rejected Mercedes-Benz's efforts to invalidate a processor patent issued over a decade ago to engineers at Intel and later assigned to a company that's asserting it against automakers and others.

  • March 27, 2025

    Fitch Even Sues Ex-IP Client In Effort To End Malpractice Case

    Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery LLP has launched a lawsuit asking an Illinois federal court to declare that the co-founder of a former client isn't the inventor behind a prenatal test patent, which the firm said would put a stop to a malpractice case against it in state court.

  • March 27, 2025

    Oura Gets Samsung's Preemptive IP Strike Tossed, For Now

    Samsung Electronics cannot yet seek a declaration that its Galaxy Ring brand of wearable, health-tracking devices does not infringe Oura Health's smart ring patents, a California federal judge ruled Thursday, saying Samsung hasn't shown the Finnish company is threatening to sue for infringement.

  • March 27, 2025

    WordPerfect Software Co. Settles 'Alludo' TM Suit In Wash.

    The company behind the 1990s word-processing application WordPerfect has settled a Washington-based education technology firm's lawsuit accusing it of stealing a trademarked name for a 2022 revamp, ending the case ahead of an early April trial date in Seattle federal court.

  • March 27, 2025

    Pfizer Tops Pharma Tax Avoidance, Senate Dems Say

    Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had no taxable profits in its largest market, the U.S., after booking all its income in jurisdictions including Puerto Rico, Singapore and Ireland, according to a Senate Finance Committee report prepared by panel Democrats that was released Thursday.

  • March 27, 2025

    Palo Alto Networks Dodges $100M Cybersecurity Patent Case

    A California federal judge has found that Silicon Valley-based Palo Alto Networks Inc. didn't infringe a trio of cybersecurity patents, freeing the company from a lawsuit that had asked for at least $100 million.

  • March 27, 2025

    Disney Seeks $5.7M Atty Fee Award After 'Moana' IP Trial Win

    The Walt Disney Co. sought $5.7 million in attorney fees Tuesday after beating an animator's trade secret and copyright suit claiming it ripped off his Polynesian adventure story to create "Moana," arguing he engaged in bad-faith tactics like forging evidence, perjuring himself and improperly inflating purported damages.

  • March 27, 2025

    Texas IP Attys Get $60K Sanction For Unauthorized Practice

    A San Francisco federal magistrate judge has leveled more than $60,000 in personal sanctions against Texas intellectual property lawyer William Ramey III and two other attorneys from his high-volume patent firm, saying two of them practiced law without a California license in numerous cases to escape paying out-of-state admission fees of $328 per lawyer.

  • March 27, 2025

    Fox Rothschild Brings On McCarter & English IP Ace In NJ

    Fox Rothschild LLP grew its Princeton, New Jersey, office this week with the addition of an intellectual property partner from McCarter & English LLP specializing in patent prosecution for medical devices, technology-enabled hardware and more.

  • March 27, 2025

    Life Sciences REIT Says Ex-Employee Stole Trade Secrets

    Alexandria Real Estate Equities Inc. filed suit against a former employee in Massachusetts federal court, alleging that he stole a trove of proprietary information as he was planning to leave the company.

  • March 27, 2025

    Dutch Software Co. Tells 4th Circ. To Pause Trial After Atty DQ

    A Dutch software company is taking another stab at delaying its impending trademark trial with an American rival, telling the Fourth Circuit that it should not be forced to proceed after the district court held one of its attorneys in contempt and essentially disqualified him.

  • March 27, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Stay Injunction Compelling Fed. Worker Rehire

    A split Ninth Circuit panel has refused to block an injunction compelling the Trump administration to reinstate about 16,000 probationary employees to six federal agencies, saying the administration will likely lose its argument that the agencies weren't acting on an order from above when they fired the workers.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Faults USPTO's 'Arbitrary' Ruling In BMW Patent Suit

    A Virginia federal judge agreed with BMW that former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal erred when she vacated a reexamination of a cruise control patent being challenged by BMW, finding that the former director didn't adequately explain her analysis.

  • March 26, 2025

    Sotomayor Urges Caution On Nondelegation Doctrine Revamp

    U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor cautioned her colleagues during oral arguments Wednesday against using a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's administration of a broadband subsidy program as a way to resurrect the long-dormant nondelegation doctrine. Several conservative justices, however, seemed willing to disregard that admonition.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Trims Copyright Case Against Microsoft, OpenAI

    A New York federal judge Wednesday kept alive news organizations' direct and contributory copyright infringement claims accusing Microsoft and OpenAI of ripping off their content to train generative artificial intelligence while trimming claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but giving the plaintiffs a chance to rework their allegations.

  • March 26, 2025

    Judge Newman Maintains Fitness Probe Must Be Transferred

    Counsel for suspended 97-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman on Wednesday told the D.C. Circuit that its decision to transfer ethics complaints against a senior district court judge, lodged by his own colleagues, supported her contention that her fellow circuit judges shouldn't investigate her fitness to remain on the bench.

  • March 26, 2025

    Ye Stole IP From Artist Who Opposes Antisemitism, Suit Says

    Ye has been sued for copyright infringement in California federal court over his song "Gun To My Head," which allegedly sampled a track by a German artist who is descended from Holocaust survivors and opposed to the rapper's public antisemitism.

  • March 26, 2025

    USPTO Director To Take Lead In Considering PTAB Denials

    Citing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's "workload needs," the acting director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced Wednesday that she will make decisions on whether every petition challenging a patent should be denied for discretionary reasons before the board considers the merits.

  • March 26, 2025

    Ramey Slams BlackBerry's IP Fee Win As 'Manifest Injustice'

    Ramey LLP and its client Silent Communications LLC urged U.S. District Judge Alan Albright Thursday to amend his finding that Ramey is liable for covering BlackBerry's attorney fees, estimated to be nearly $900,000, after filing a patent lawsuit in bad faith, arguing that the judgment is a "manifest injustice."

  • March 26, 2025

    Coalition Says Trump Admin Flouted Federal Rehiring Order

    The Trump administration responded to an injunction compelling it to rehire over 15,000 fired probationary employees by placing them on leave, not bringing them back to work, a coalition of advocates for the workers told a California federal judge Wednesday, saying the administration hasn't complied with the injunction.

  • March 26, 2025

    Full Fed. Circ. Won't Look At Injunction On MSN's Generic Drug

    The full Federal Circuit won't revisit a panel's January order barring MSN Laboratories Pvt. Ltd. from launching a generic version of Novartis' bestseller, the cardiovascular drug Entresto, as part of a flurry of moves in litigation related to the treatment.

  • March 26, 2025

    Trump Asks Again For End To 'Dubious' Isaac Hayes Suit

    President Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that Isaac Hayes' estate can't show it owns the rights to the 1966 song "Hold On, I'm Coming," arguing its "dubious chain of copyright ownership" can't overcome his bid to dismiss the legendary musician's estate's suit over his playing the song at campaign events.

Expert Analysis

  • How Patent Landscape Analysis Drives Business Growth

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    Keegan Caldwell at Caldwell Law explores how patent landscape analysis serves as a key driver of sustainable growth — examining how its components, strategic advantages and implementation best practices are reshaping innovation leadership.

  • Marching In On Orange Book Drugs May Have Limited Effect

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    Statistical analysis shows that marching in on Orange Book drug patent holders to require additional licensees would have a relatively minimal impact on drug prices, and should be weighed against the harms it could have on pharmaceutical innovation, say researchers at Competition Dynamics.

  • Series

    Being A Navy Reservist Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving this country in uniform has not only been one of the greatest honors of my life, but it has also provided me with opportunities to broaden my legal acumen and interpersonal skills in ways that have indelibly contributed to my civilian practice, says Phillip Smith at Weinberg Wheeler.

  • Navigating DOJ's Patchwork Whistleblower Regime

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    In the past few months, the U.S. Department of Justice and several individual U.S. attorney’s offices have issued different pilot programs aimed at incentivizing individuals to blow the whistle on misconduct, but this piecemeal approach may create confusion and suboptimal outcomes, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • So You Want To Move Your Law Practice To Canada, Eh?

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    Google searches for how to move to Canada have surged in the wake of the U.S. presidential election, and if you’re an attorney considering a move to the Great White North, you’ll need to understand how the practice of law differs across the border, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.

  • When Arbitration Is Effective For Employment And IP Cases

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    Widespread adoption of arbitration has revolutionized conflict resolution in employment law, and the benefits of speed, expertise and confidentiality make it an increasingly attractive alternative for resolving patent conflicts — but arbitration is not a silver bullet, say Brandon Miller at Fisher Phillips and Camilla Bykhovsky at Turner Boyd.

  • US Intellectual Property-Based Sanctions Could Be Imminent

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    A recent presidential delegation suggests that regulators may be ready to wield the sanctions authority found in the Protecting American Intellectual Property Act, which has been unutilized for the first 22 months of its life, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Key Territory-Split Licensing Lessons For Life Sciences Cos.

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    Territory-split deals can allow life sciences companies to maximize products' potential across a range of geographic areas, but these deals also present unique challenges requiring highly bespoke structures that can make or break the value of an asset, say attorneys at Covington.

  • A Look At 2024 NIL Rights And Economies In College Sports

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    Permutations in the arena of name, image and likeness affecting collegiate athletics have continued unabated this year, and practitioners and industry representatives should anticipate significant activity at schools and continuing legal changes at the state level, say attorneys at Pillsbury.

  • Legislation Most Likely To Pass In Lame Duck Session

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    As Congress begins its five-week post-election lame duck session, attorneys at Greenberg Traurig break down the legislative priorities and which proposals can be expected to pass.

  • Copyright Questions Surround AI Music Platform Suits

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    If recent lawsuits filed by the Recording Industry Association of America against two artificial intelligence music platform developers — who maintain that use of copyrighted works to train AI models constitutes fair use — go to trial, this novel issue will make for potentially precedent-setting decisions, says intellectual property lawyer Eric Lane.

  • Patent Marking Steps After Fed. Circ. Opens Lanham Act Door

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    Following the Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Crocs v. Effervescent, which seemingly revives private actors’ ability to bring false patent marking claims under the Lanham Act, marketing and legal teams should be careful to avoid advertisement language that implies nonexistent patent rights, says Jeffrey Ratinoff at Spencer Fane.

  • Litigation Strategies In View Of New Double Patenting Rulings

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    Recent Federal Circuit decisions, including in Allergan v. MSN, raise several issues that patent owners should understand and consider addressing proactively regarding obviousness-type double patenting, at least in their prosecution strategies, say attorneys at Dentons.

  • Promoting Diversity In The Selection Of ADR Neutrals

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    Choosing neutrals from diverse backgrounds is an important step in promoting inclusion in the legal profession, and it can enhance the legitimacy and public perception of alternative dispute resolution proceedings, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Series

    Playing Ultimate Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    In addition to being fun, ultimate Frisbee has improved our legal careers by emphasizing the importance of professionalism, teamwork, perseverance, enthusiasm and vulnerability, say Arunabha Bhoumik and Adam Bernstein at Regeneron. 

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