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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Sept. 18 stayed until December a lawsuit by the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office challenging her purported removal by President Donald J. Trump; the stay is in light of a bill awaiting Senate approval that “would make clear that the Register of Copyrights is an officer ‘appointed by the President’ with the advice and consent of the Senate.”
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a New York federal judge’s decision to enter a $3.24 million award for attorney fees and expenses, along with postjudgment interest, in a dispute related to patents describing processes for growing diamonds in a lab, agreeing that the plaintiff-appellant’s infringement position became objectively baseless after discovery, yet the entity still pursued its infringement claims.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Upholding a New York federal judge’s construction of a claim phrase in a patent describing a process for making iron supplements, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected the patent holder’s challenge to the judge’s decision to enter summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of a defendant-appellee entity.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated a decision by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that affirmed a patent examiner’s rejection of a claim in a patent describing a catheter device, finding that PTAB’s “incorrect construction of ‘flow barrier’ impaired its obviousness analysis.”
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a pair of opinions, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ordered new trials on validity in two disputes over plaintiff-appellee entities’ patent on a float tool for use in oil wells, holding that a Texas judge erred in construing a claim relevant to both cases; the panel vacated an infringement win for the plaintiff-appellees in one of the cases but preserved a contributory infringement judgment in the other.
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September 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Pennsylvania federal judge’s decisions to grant a defendant-appellee medical device company’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement and to deny the plaintiff-appellant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of infringement; the panel saw no error in the judge’s construction of a claim phrase that led to summary judgment on certain claims nor any reason to overturn the jury’s verdict on other claims.
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September 21, 2026
CINCINNATI — In a dispute over cheese shredder products sold under variations of the name “Cheese Hog,” a federal judge in Ohio dismissed with prejudice defendants’ fraud-based counterclaims; however, a reasonable dispute remains for jurors to decide on claims of infringement, the judge determined.
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September 21, 2026
ATLANTA — In a dispute over the use of the name “Wolf” in relation to scooters, an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Florida federal judge’s grant of summary judgment to the plaintiff appellee entity, noting the close similarity of the marks at issue and more than a dozen instances of actual customer confusion.
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September 21, 2026
ST. LOUIS — A Missouri federal judge dismissed a credit union’s federal trademark dilution and Missouri infringement counts it brought against a loan company for alleged misuse of trademarks involving the word “together,” but the judge allowed cybersquatting and Missouri trademark dilution claims to survive; the judge held that the plaintiff company plausibly alleged bad faith use of a confusingly similar domain while failing to plead the nationwide fame required for federal dilution.
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September 21, 2026
BALTIMORE — After a bench trial, a Maryland federal judge determined that an early member of a Baltimore soul music group never left the group, remaining a holder of its trademark rights; as a result, the judge determined that a defendant’s later registrations associated with the band must be canceled as invalid.
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September 18, 2026
CHARLESTON, S.C. — After a South Carolina federal judge entered a consent judgment agreed upon by the parties, a clothing company will pay Buc-ee’s Ltd., the gas station company known for its megastores in the southern United States, $850,000 for using its trademarked cartoon beaver logo on merchandise.
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September 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 16 distributed for conference a challenge from the family of baseball player Roberto Clemente to a partly divided First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel opinion that largely affirmed a Puerto Rico federal judge’s decision to dismiss a suit against Puerto Rican government entities by Clemente’s sons; while the family questions the extent to which the government entities are immune from trademark infringement suits, the government entities said in an August response that the bid for certiorari should be denied.
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September 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A series of amici curiae filed briefs in support of neither party before the U.S. Supreme Court in which a petitioner coffee company argues that a trademark’s inherent or conceptual strength is a factual question because the inquiry asks how consumers perceive the mark in connection with the relevant goods, arguing that the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is an outlier for considering similarity to be a question of law; the amici take a range of opinions as to whether conceptual strength is a factual issue for juries or a mixed inquiry of both fact and law.
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September 17, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — In a long-running dispute over patented voice-recognition technology, Comcast Corp. and a related entity (together, Comcast) will not be able to argue in a bench trial on its inequitable conduct counterclaim that a patent it was found earlier this year to have infringed was unpatentable as obvious or anticipated based on prior art patents, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled.
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September 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Finding that a coding technology company still held a valid exclusive license to a series of patents and copyrights when it shifted its business to enforcement of intellectual property, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a Delaware federal court’s dismissal of the company’s suit against Broadcom Inc. and other defendant-appellees because the university that owned the intellectual property was not an otherwise necessary party and because the plaintiff-appellant’s license was not terminated as a result of the shift in business.
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September 16, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a recently filed petition for a writ of certiorari, Apple Inc. asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision that upheld an import ban on certain Apple Watches, arguing that the appeals court improperly loosened the domestic-industry requirement for U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) patent complaints and affirmed the agency on rationales it never adopted.
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September 15, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal magistrate judge declined to order nonparties Anthropic PBC and OpenAI OpCo LLC to produce information related to market substitution, licensing and torrenting practices, finding that differences in the artificial intelligence models and relevance issues defeat discovery efforts in a trio of copyright cases against Meta Platforms Inc.
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September 15, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a split opinion, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Delaware federal judge’s judgment of noninfringement in favor of Amazon.com Inc. and a related entity, with the majority finding no error in the judge’s construction of claims in a dispute over a patent that “relates to implementing wide area networks with improved quality of service.”
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September 10, 2026
CINCINNATI — In an order filed in two related cases, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a pro se defendant-appellant’s request for a writ of mandamus in which he sought an audit of a trademark and harassment dispute with the appellant’s former employer; the panel said the man failed to show that his earlier appeal was not an adequate remedy.
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September 10, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its merits brief, a coffee company tells the U.S. Supreme Court that a trademark’s inherent or conceptual strength is a factual question because the inquiry asks how consumers perceive the mark in connection with the relevant goods, arguing that the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is an outlier for considering similarity to be a question of law.
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September 10, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Sept. 9 denied a Dutch software company’s request to stay a North Carolina federal judge’s amended preliminary injunction and delay trial while it sought review by the high court in a dispute over a North Carolina company’s trademarked branding, copyrighted code and trade secrets.
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September 09, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Sept. 8 affirmed a California federal judge’s decision to award more than $700,000 in attorney fees against a plaintiff-appellant entity in a dispute over patents covering three-dimensional sensing technologies, finding that the record does not establish that the plaintiff-appellant conducted an adequate presuit investigation.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a determination from the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain claims of a patent describing a vitamin D treatment held by a couple were unpatentable as obvious, determining that substantial evidence supported PTAB’s underlying prior art factual findings and that the couple failed to properly develop certain theories before the board.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In separately filed petitions for rehearing, a patent holder is requesting that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reconsider a panel’s decision to affirm a Texas federal judge’s dismissal of its suit against Volkswagen Group of America Inc. and an award of more than $200,000 in attorney fees, and the entity’s counsel William P. Ramey III is requesting that the appeals court reconsider its timeliness finding that led it to reject his appeal of the judge’s order holding him jointly and severally liable.
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September 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — After a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in July vacated a $12.7 million judgment against the United States awarded to software entities by a judge in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, the entities argue in a recently filed petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc that the panel improperly approved a hypothetical license negotiation even though the parties had twice negotiated arm’s-length licenses establishing infringed software’s market value.