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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • November 03, 2025

    7th Circuit: Judge Wrong To Ignore Choice Of Damages Type In Copyright Default

    CHICAGO — While acknowledging the influx of copyright cases against anonymous online marketplaces and the strain it has caused on Illinois federal courts, a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a federal judge was wrong to choose statutory damages over disgorgement of profits for an alternative-style apparel plaintiff against online sellers that failed to appear.

  • November 03, 2025

    AI Artist Seeks Hold Of Petition Pending Copyright Agency Leadership Decisions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A man asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold consideration of his petition for a writ of certiorari in a case challenging denial of copyright protection for an artificial intelligence-generated piece of artwork while courts decide whether Shira Perlmutter can continue to serve as head of the U.S. Copyright Office.

  • October 31, 2025

    Government Won’t Reply To AI Image Copyright Protection Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government filed a notice that it was waiving its right to respond to a man’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which he tells the U.S. Supreme Court that copyright protections are in place to ensure dissemination of creative works to the public even when a human is not the owner and should apply to artificial intelligence-generated outputs for the same reasons.

  • October 31, 2025

    Federal Circuit: Merck Can’t Use Team Overlap To Escape Patent Obviousness

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) did not err when it held that a prior publication about a multiple sclerosis (MS) drug created through a collaboration involving a company that eventually merged into Merck Serono SA was prior art created “by another” for the purpose of showing that certain claims of more recent Merck patents were unpatentable as obvious, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Oct. 30 in a pair of opinions stemming from separate inter partes review (IPR) proceedings.

  • October 31, 2025

    ISP Maintains Argument To High Court That It Is Not Liable For Piracy

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an Oct. 30 reply brief, an internet service provider (ISP) maintains its argument before the U.S. Supreme Court that it must overturn a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals finding that it is liable for contributory infringement for internet users who pirated copyrighted materials of record labels and music publishers.

  • October 31, 2025

    Inventor Says In Rehearing Bid That Federal Circuit Wrongly Applied Laches

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a petition for rehearing en banc, an inventor tells the full Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that a panel’s application of prosecution laches conflicts with precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the panel was wrong to uphold a District of Columbia federal judge’s finding that prosecution laches barred the inventor’s patent applications.

  • October 30, 2025

    Pornography Downloads Likely Personal Use, Not AI Training, Meta Claims

    SAN FRANCISCO — The small amount of adult videos downloaded by IP addresses associated with Meta Platforms Inc. were likely downloaded for personal use and not for training artificial intelligence, the company says in asking a federal judge in California to dismiss copyright infringement claims.

  • October 30, 2025

    Judge: Poker Patent Licensee Failed To Show Owner Knew Patents Were Invalid

    LAS VEGAS — A federal judge in Nevada dismissed a defendant gaming company’s counterclaims in a dispute over royalty agreements of a patent on a variant version of three-card poker, finding that the defendant company failed to plausibly allege that the plaintiff entity should have known that its patent claims were invalid when inking the licensing agreement at issue.

  • October 30, 2025

    Federal Circuit Won’t Rethink Denying Bid To Block Tech Patent Cases’ Transfer

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Oct. 29 turned down a technology company’s petitions for rehearing in related proceedings stemming from petitions for writs of mandamus it filed; the appeals court left in place September orders by a panel that rejected the company’s request to block the transfer of its suits against two technology giants from a Texas federal court to one in California.

  • October 29, 2025

    Federal Circuit Denies Mandamus To Patent Holder In Background Check Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 28 denied a patent holder’s petition for a writ of mandamus, leaving in place a California federal judge’s refusal to transfer the case to a federal court in Oklahoma; the panel found no abuse of discretion in the judge’s finding that the delayed nature of the patent holder’s motion to transfer called the motivations for the transfer into question.

  • October 29, 2025

    Claims In Roof-Measuring Patent Obvious; Federal Circuit Agrees With PTAB

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected a company’s claim that the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) failed to fully explain its motivation-to-combine reasoning when it held that all challenged claims of its patent describing a process of measuring roofs with aerial imagery were unpatentable as obvious, affirming the PTAB’s findings.

  • October 28, 2025

    Injunction Granted, Trademark Use Enjoined In Counterfeit Insurance Policy Dispute

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A federal judge in Florida granted a preliminary injunction to an insurance holding company barring a captive operator and its affiliates from using the holding company’s name and trademarks in connection with allegedly unauthorized insurance policies and certificates of insurance.

  • October 28, 2025

    AI Company To High Court: Federal Circuit Opinion Could Harm AI Patents

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A machine learning patent holder is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling on a matter of first impression that affirmed the invalidation of the patents for describing the abstract concept of machine learning without pointing to specific improvements; the company tells the high court that the Federal Circuit’s approach to patent eligibility “flouts this Court’s instruction to consider preemption.”

  • October 28, 2025

    OpenAI Must Face ChatGPT Output Copyright Claims, Judge Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — OpenAI entities must face class claims alleging that ChatGPT outputs material substantially similar to copyrighted works, the federal judge in New York overseeing the multidistrict litigation said Oct. 27.

  • October 28, 2025

    Judge’s Construction Of Claim In Heart Valve Patent Correct, Federal Circuit Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Oct. 27 affirmed a stipulated judgment of noninfringement issued by a Delaware federal judge in a patent dispute over a transcatheter aortic valve, holding that there was no error in the judge’s construction of the disputed claim phrase “outer frame.”

  • October 28, 2025

    Trump, Others Seek Supreme Court Stay In Battle Over Copyright Register Job

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. president has the power to remove executive officers, including the register of copyrights, the acting librarian of congress, President Donald J. Trump and others argue in an Oct. 27 U.S. Supreme Court application seeking to stay an interlocutory injunction by the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • October 28, 2025

    PTAB Right To Find Semiconductor Claims Obvious, Federal Circuit Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel rejected a semiconductor company’s challenge of a U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) finding that its patent application contained certain claims that were invalid as obvious, finding that the company forfeited its arguments on appeal by failing to properly raise them before the PTAB.

  • October 28, 2025

    Pair Of New Class Actions Adds To Copyright Headaches For AI Companies

    Two new class actions filed in California federal court are the latest challenges to companies’ use of data to train artificial intelligence, with plaintiffs in separate suits claiming that Apple Inc. and Salesforce Inc. used pirated copyrighted material as training data.

  • October 27, 2025

    Charging Patent Claims Invalid As Obvious, Federal Circuit Panel Says

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — There was no error in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) construal of the claim term “coupled” in its consideration of a technology company’s patent describing an inductive charging system, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Oct. 24, affirming PTAB’s findings that multiple claims of the patent were obvious due to prior art references.

  • October 27, 2025

    5th Circuit Vacates Fees, Damages Against Law Firm Name Fakers In IP Fight

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Texas federal judge’s grant of summary judgment to a law firm on its trademark claims against a man and two attorneys who made a fake website using the law firm’s name as part of a landlord-tenant dispute, but the panel vacated more than $2 million in damages and fees the judge ordered to be paid to the real law firm, finding that the judge failed to explain the basis for the award.

  • October 24, 2025

    Amici To High Court: Reversing Finding Against ISP Would Reward Infringement

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In one of 10 amicus curiae briefs filed in support of record labels and music publishers, the Copyright Alliance tells the U.S. Supreme Court that it must affirm the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding of contributory infringement against an internet service provider (ISP), arguing that the Fourth Circuit was correct in its finding of willful infringement.

  • October 24, 2025

    Car Company Asks 9th Circuit To Rethink Fee Denial In Car Chase Film IP Dispute

    SAN FRANCISCO — A classic car company and its owners tell a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel that it erred when it denied the company’s request for attorney fees, arguing that the panel by necessity ruled on a breach of contract claim when it held in May that a Ford Mustang known as “Eleanor” in the film “Gone in 60 Seconds” is not a copyrightable character under a Ninth Circuit test.

  • October 23, 2025

    Federal Circuit: No Error In PTAB Recusal, But Board Didn’t Examine Copying

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said Oct. 22 that it saw no error in the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) analysis of the recusal of an administrative patent judge (APJ) after the institution of inter partes review (IPR) for a cybersecurity patent; the panel also held, though, that PTAB failed to fully consider evidence on copying provided by the appellant patent holder.

  • October 23, 2025

    Judge Tosses Lawyer’s Suit Seeking Leave To Make Unlicensed NFL Shirts

    NEW YORK — A New York federal judge dismissed a complaint brought by a self-described “‘annoyance lawyer’” against NFL Properties LLC (NFLP), exercising judicial discretion to decline to proceed with a complaint seeking a declaration that he can make T-shirts bearing various NFL trademarks without running afoul of federal trademark laws.

  • October 22, 2025

    Judge Finds Songwriters’ Copyright Claims Against Pop Singer, UMG Fail

    MIAMI — A federal judge in Florida dismissed with prejudice a copyright infringement complaint filed by two songwriters against a Brazilian pop singer and UMG Recordings Inc., holding that the songwriters failed to plausibly allege access or substantial similarity between their song and the 2023 hit single “Funk Rave.”