Intellectual Property

  • December 04, 2025

    Traffic Safety Exec Joined Rival After $77K Bonus, Court Told

    A traffic safety company has alleged in North Carolina federal court that the person who was in charge of expanding its business in the Southeast resigned just hours after receiving a $77,000 bonus check and took a trove of trade secrets, a slew of employees and customer lists to his new job for a rival.

  • December 04, 2025

    Photographer Gets $51K In Copyright Case Against Website

    A Manhattan federal judge has ordered the publisher of an online photography magazine to pay $51,000 in total damages and fees to a photographer after the Second Circuit said its publishing of her work was not fair use.

  • December 04, 2025

    Foreign Investment Office Leader Joins DLA Piper In DC

    The former leader of a Commerce Department office that does national security reviews of foreign investments, and who has more than a decade of working in senior roles in government, has joined DLA Piper LLP's Washington office as a partner, the firm announced Wednesday.

  • December 04, 2025

    Ohio Football Player's Mother Drops Suit After NIL Approval

    The football player's mother who sued the Ohio High School Athletic Association over a bylaw banning athletes from receiving name, image and likeness compensation dropped the suit after the association recently voted to rescind the ban.

  • December 03, 2025

    USPTO Gets Earful On Plan To Restrict Patent Reviews

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's proposed new rules to limit America Invents Act patent reviews have generated scores of forceful comments, with supporters saying the proposal will curb redundant challenges and opponents arguing it would bar legitimate reviews and exceed the office's power.

  • December 03, 2025

    OpenAI Can't Scrap Injunction In TM Suit Over 'IO' Name

    OpenAI can't undo an injunction won by IYO Inc. that temporarily blocked it from using the "IO" trademark in certain circumstances involving acquired competitor IO Products, after the Ninth Circuit concluded on Wednesday that the parties' marks only differ by one letter and sell similar AI-related products.

  • December 03, 2025

    ITC Judge Finds Innoscience Infringes 1 Of 2 Infineon Patents

    A U.S. International Trade Commission judge has found that China-based chipmaker Innoscience infringed upon a patent owned by semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies, though Innoscience says the finding doesn't block it from selling its gallium nitride technology products.

  • December 03, 2025

    Kevin O'Leary, Company Execs Fight Patent Forgery Suit

    A livestock technology company and several of its executives and investors, including Kevin O'Leary of "Shark Tank," have asked a Colorado federal judge to throw out the lawsuit against them by the company's founder, who claims the defendants stole her company and intellectual property.

  • December 03, 2025

    State AGs Condemn College Sports Rule Enforcement Deal

    Seven state attorneys general on Wednesday called a proposed contract between NCAA institutions and the commission enforcing new revenue-sharing rules for athletes "cartoonishly villainous," arguing in a letter that it undermines state laws and jeopardizes the rights of athletes and schools.

  • December 03, 2025

    Meta Accused Of Stealing Swedish Label's Music A 2nd Time

    A Swedish music label has once again accused Meta of copyright infringement, saying the social media giant has not stopped encouraging users to insert its recordings into Reels and other videos on Facebook and Instagram without proper licensing since its first suit was filed. 

  • December 03, 2025

    Rag & Bone Gets Temporary Relief In Suit Over 'Miramar' Mark

    Fashion brand Rag & Bone secured a temporary restraining order on Wednesday against an intellectual property holding company from asserting ownership over a trademark of the term "Miramar," saying Rag & Bone had shown it was likely to suffer irreparable harm without court intervention.

  • December 03, 2025

    Novartis, Swiss Marketer Want Out Of Trade Secrets Suit

    A Swiss marketing company and its founder have joined pharmaceutical giant Novartis in asking a Manhattan federal judge to release them from a hedge fund's suit accusing the founder of brokering business meetings with Novartis in a scheme to steal its strategy, claiming the suit is merely an attempt to punish Novartis for placing money with a competitor.

  • December 03, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Backs Axed Claims In Heart Rate Monitor Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Wednesday upheld a Utah federal court's decision that claims in a wireless heart rate monitor patent owned by Finnish sports tech company Polar Electro Oy were invalid under the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice test.

  • December 03, 2025

    Judge Rejects X's Early Attempt To Block Minn. Deepfake Law

    A Minnesota federal judge has denied X Corp.'s request for a favorable ruling in its challenge to a Minnesota state law curtailing the dissemination of "deepfakes" aimed at influencing elections, saying X had not shown that it could be harmed by the law in a manner that would give it standing to block it.

  • December 03, 2025

    Nike 'Cool Compression' Case Not Exceptional, 3rd Circ. Told

    Nike argued before the Third Circuit on Wednesday that its "cool compression" trademark litigation with clothing maker Lontex Corp. was not so "exceptional" that it should pay Lontex's attorney fees, which exceed $5 million, given that the trial court and Third Circuit had previously held that the Lanham Act case was a close one.

  • December 03, 2025

    Sheppard Mullin Lands MoFo IP Atty In Los Angeles

    Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP announced Wednesday it has bulked up its intellectual property practice with a Los Angeles-based partner who came aboard from Morrison Foerster LLP.

  • December 03, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Pushes DC Circ. Not To Rethink Newman Decision

    The Federal Circuit has urged the D.C. Circuit to ignore Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman's request to rehear a decision upholding the dismissal of her suit against the colleagues who suspended her, saying the judiciary has the right to police its own internal matters.

  • December 02, 2025

    Squires Institutes First PTAB Challenges Since Taking Over

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has instituted four inter partes reviews and two post-grant reviews, the first Patent Trial and Appeal Board challenges to get his sign-off since he took over the institution review process.

  • December 02, 2025

    Cher Wins $187K In Royalties In Sonny Bono Estate Dispute

    Actress and singer Cher was granted about $187,000 in royalties by a California federal judge who ruled that the money had been retained by her late ex-husband and one-time musical collaborator Sonny Bono's estate improperly.

  • December 02, 2025

    14 Ex-Lawmakers Tell USPTO Proposed Rules Violate The Law

    A group of 14 former members of Congress, including America Invents Act sponsor Patrick Leahy, has told the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that the agency's proposal to restrict many patent challenges "violates foundational American legal principles and the AIA."

  • December 02, 2025

    Lyft Gets Albright To Invalidate Some Ride-Hailing Patents

    A Texas federal judge has found that three of Quartz Auto Technologies' patents Lyft Inc. has been accused of infringing are not patentable, after the ride-hailing giant said they were ineligible for patent protection under the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice standard.

  • December 02, 2025

    Citadel Securities Can't Duck Microchip Patent Claims

    An Illinois federal judge has denied Citadel Securities' attempt to escape a software company's patent infringement claims related to computer microchips, saying she was not convinced that the patents at issue were too abstract to be valid.

  • December 02, 2025

    Tesla Joins Fight At Fed. Circ. Against PTAB Policy Changes

    Tesla has become the latest company to head to the Federal Circuit to challenge U.S. Patent and Trademark Office changes to the institution process at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, saying the office is putting up "arbitrary roadblocks."

  • December 02, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Erases $41.8M Verdict Over Seagen Cancer Drug IP

    The Federal Circuit in a precedential opinion Tuesday reversed a $41.8 million verdict against Daiichi Sankyo for infringing a Seagen breast cancer treatment patent, saying a lower court should have found that the patent didn't adequately describe the claimed invention or enable a skilled person to use it.

  • December 02, 2025

    Startup's Accent Translation Trade Secrets Suit Can Proceed

    A California federal judge has denied a technology company's attempt to escape a suit alleging it stole trade secrets related to an accent translation technology from an artificial intelligence startup, saying the tech company's insistence that its rival did not make enough of an effort to defend the secrets does not make for grounds to dismiss the case at this time.

Expert Analysis

  • How To Increase 3rd-Party Preissuance Patent Submissions

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    Attorneys Marian Underweiser and Marc Ehrlich, who helped draft the America Invents Act, discuss changes that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office could potentially implement to facilitate its hopes for increased participation in front-end patent challenges.

  • Anthropic Ruling Creates Fair Use Framework For AI Training

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    A California federal court’s recent ruling that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its large language model qualified as fair use provides important guidance for both artificial intelligence developers and copyright holders because it distinguishes between transformative uses and unauthorized uses involving pirated or format-shifted works, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Series

    Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

  • Assessing Impact Of USPTO's New Patent Policies

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    Recent data shows how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new patent policies are affecting America Invents Act trial institution rates, including spurring an uptick in discretionary denials, say attorneys at Armond Wilson.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Skillful Persuasion

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    In many ways, law school teaches us how to argue, but when the ultimate goal is to get your client what they want, being persuasive through preparation and humility is the more likely key to success, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.

  • Fed. Circ. Ingenico Ruling Pivotal For IPR Estoppel Landscape

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Ingenico v. Ioengine brings long-awaited clarity to the scope of inter partes review estoppel, confirming that a patent challenger is not precluded from relying on the same or substantially similar prior art in both IPR and district court proceedings, so long as it is used to support a different invalidity theory, say attorneys at Irwin IP.

  • Litigation Inspiration: How To Respond After A Loss

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    Every litigator loses a case now and then, and the sting of that loss can become a medicine that strengthens or a poison that corrodes, depending on how the attorney responds, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • How Patent Attys Can Carefully Integrate LLMs Into Workflows

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    With artificial intelligence-powered tools now being developed specifically for the intellectual property domain, patent practitioners should monitor evolving considerations to ensure that their capabilities are enhanced — rather than diminished — by these resources, say attorneys at McDonnell Boehnen.

  • The Metamorphosis Of The Major Questions Doctrine

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    The so-called major questions doctrine arose as a counterweight to Chevron deference over the past few decades, but invocations of the doctrine have persisted in the year since Chevron was overturned, suggesting it still has a role to play in reining in agency overreach, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • New PTAB Denial Processes Grow More And More Confusing

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    Guidance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office about the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's new workload management and discretionary denial processes has been murky and inconsistent, and has been further muddled by the acting director's seemingly contradictory decisions, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • EU Space Act Could Stifle US Commercial Operators

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    The EU Space Act, proposed last month, has the potential to raise global standards for safety and sustainability in space, but the U.S. and EU need to harmonize their regulatory approaches to avoid imposing regulatory burdens that undermine commercial innovation and agility, say Jessica Noble and Adriane Mandakunis at Aegis Space Law.

  • A Word On Ensuring Precision In Patent Claim Construction

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    The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Express Mobile v. Meta Platforms, overruling the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's interpretation of the term "style," highlights the importance of articulating claim constructions that are as clear as possible, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.

  • Series

    Playing Mah-Jongg Makes Me A Better Mediator

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    Mah-jongg rewards patience, pattern recognition, adaptability and keen observation, all skills that are invaluable to my role as a mediator, and to all mediating parties, says Marina Corodemus.

  • Does Research Tool Safe Harbor Cover AI Drug Development?

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    As artificial intelligence increasingly takes root in drug development, many questions may emerge regarding current gaps in courts' application of the research tool exception to the safe harbor defense against patent infringement, and whether that defense applies to AI-based tools, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Tips For Business Users After 2 Key AI Copyright Decisions

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    Because two recent artificial intelligence copyright decisions from the Northern District of California — Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta — came out mostly in favor of the developers using the plaintiffs' works to train large language models, business users should proceed with care, says Chris Wlach at Acxiom.

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