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Mealey's Intellectual Property

  • February 13, 2026

    Judge: Counterclaimant In Trademark Suit Can’t Claim Tortious Interference

    TRENTON, N.J. — In a dispute over a trademark on the word “Pearly,” a New Jersey federal judge dismissed a tortious interference counterclaim because the claim was barred by New Jersey’s litigation privileges; the judge held that the defendant entities’ remaining counterclaims survived the motion to dismiss.

  • February 13, 2026

    Judge Grants Alternative Service Motion In Star Trek E-Commerce Trademark Dispute

    MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on Feb. 12 granted CBS’s motion for alternative service of process in a trademark infringement suit against an alleged Singapore-based e-commerce retailer accused of infringement regarding Star Trek intellectual property rights, finding that alternative service through email and website posting will reasonably provide the retailer an opportunity to respond to the suit.

  • February 12, 2026

    Trademark Dilution Claim Stripped From Band Rights Dispute As Judge Adopts Report

    MIAMI — A federal judge in Florida adopted a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation and granted summary judgment to a plaintiff Venezuelan musician on a record label’s counterclaim of state-level trademark dilution in a battle that began with the musician’s allegation that multiple music companies illegally uploaded his music to online streaming platforms.

  • February 12, 2026

    Federal Judge Remands Rolling Paper Trademark Case To California State Court

    LOS ANGELES — A California judge remanded a tobacco company’s trademark complaint against entities it said sold counterfeit products to California state court, agreeing with the plaintiff entity that its claims did not sound in federal trademark law, only state and common law.

  • February 12, 2026

    Judge Defaults Trademark Defendant For Counsel’s Repeated Citations To Fake Cases

    NEW YORK — In a dispute arising from the theft and resale of trademarked children’s toys, a New York federal judge issued case-terminating sanctions by issuing a default order against one of the defendant entities after its counsel was repeatedly chastised by the court for filing briefs riddled with false citations generated via artificial intelligence.

  • February 11, 2026

    Ballistic Armor Patent Preamble Was Limiting, Federal Circuit Agrees

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Maryland federal judge correctly granted summary judgment of noninfringement in a patent dispute over a technology for ballistic armor panels, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed Feb. 10, because the plaintiff entity failed to show that the accused product met properly construed claim limitations.

  • February 11, 2026

    AI Artist Says Copyright Applies To More Than Just Humans

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Copyright Act has never been limited to just human authors, and the U.S. Copyright Office’s policy not to grant protections to artificial intelligence-created works goes against both the statute and the U.S. Constitution, a man says in reply in support of his U.S. Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari.

  • February 10, 2026

    No Infringement Of Patent Affirmed, Despite Wrongful Claim Constructions

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — While a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated some of a Massachusetts federal judge’s claim constructions in a patent infringement dispute concerning artificial blood-pumping systems for cardiac patients, the panel held in a Feb. 9 opinion that other correct claim constructions supported the judge’s entry of summary judgment of noninfringement.

  • February 10, 2026

    9th Circuit: ‘Hatchet Wielding’ Man’s Copyright Claims Fail, Not Defamation Claim

    SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel largely affirmed the dismissal of a sprawling pro se complaint brought by the subject of a documentary titled “The Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker,” agreeing with a California federal judge’s finding that the man’s copyright claims failed but also finding that he narrowly established a defamation claim against one defendant-appellee for potentially fabricated claims made in the documentary.

  • February 10, 2026

    Novo Nordisk Sues Hims For Patent Infringement Over Compounded Semaglutide Sales

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The manufacturer of Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus on Feb. 9 sued an online health care provider in Delaware federal court for patent infringement stemming from its marketing and sale of compounded semaglutide for weight loss.

  • February 09, 2026

    Federal Circuit: Judge Rightly Excluded Little Giant Expert For Claim Construction

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Minnesota federal judge’s decision to grant summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of a company accused by Little Giant Ladder Systems LLC; the panel agreed that the accused product did not meet the court’s construction of a claim limitation requiring a “cavity” in a locking mechanism.

  • February 06, 2026

    Federal Circuit Affirms Abstractness Of Patent Asserted Against Walmart

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed a Texas federal judge’s entry of summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Walmart Inc., writing in a nonprecedential Feb. 5 opinion that the plaintiff-appellant technology company could not show that the asserted patent claims were not invalid as abstract.

  • February 06, 2026

    Judge Tosses Surfboard Company’s Trademark Claims For Lack Of License Termination

    SAN DIEGO — A California federal judge found that an entity associated with a world-famous surfer failed to show that it terminated a license agreement that allowed a surfboard manufacturer the ability to use trademarks associated with the surfer’s name, sinking the plaintiff’s claims of infringement and unfair competition.

  • February 05, 2026

    Federal Circuit: Subcontractor For NASA Can’t Infringe Martian Helicopter Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California federal judge rightly granted summary judgment to a NASA subcontractor in a patent infringement suit, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Feb. 4, because any alleged infringement the company performed on a helicopter sent to Mars is immunized by the subcontractor’s work for the U.S. government.

  • February 05, 2026

    Samsung, PTO Tell High Court To Reject IPR Scope-Challenging Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) tell the U.S. Supreme Court that it should reject a technology company’s petition for a writ of certiorari in which it argues that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals expanded the scope of inter partes review (IPR) to include consideration of an “abandoned patent application” when affirming findings by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB); the respondents tell the high court that the Federal Circuit correctly applied the statutory boundaries of the IPR process.

  • February 04, 2026

    PTAB Right To Invalidate Roof-Mapping Patent, Federal Circuit Holds

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 3 affirmed a finding by the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board that certain claims in patents describing systems for generating roofing estimation reports were unpatentable as obvious; the panel saw no error in PTAB’s claim construction or other elements of its findings.

  • February 03, 2026

    Federal Judge Refuses To Reconsider Ruling In Trade Secret Suit Against Insurer

    LAS VEGAS — A federal judge in Nevada denied a software provider’s motion to reconsider an earlier ruling that granted in part and denied in part an insurer’s motion for summary judgment in the provider’s lawsuit alleging that the insurer and another software provider misappropriated its trade secrets to develop a clone of its flood claims services system application, holding that the motion is untimely and the plaintiff failed to assert adequate grounds to grant its motion for reconsideration.

  • February 03, 2026

    Split Federal Circuit Affirms Noninfringement Finding For Massager Design Patent

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 2 affirmed a Maine federal judge’s grant of summary judgment of noninfringement in a dispute over a design patent describing a body massaging device; the panel majority held that a reasonable jury could not have found infringement under the judge’s construction, while the chief circuit judge wrote in dissent that the majority and the judge focused too much on individual features and not the similarity of the overall design.

  • February 03, 2026

    Copyright Office Defendants Say AI-Prompted Art Not Subject To Protections

    DENVER — An artist could have chosen to copyright whatever portions of a work he created, but he is not entitled to protection for artificial intelligence outputs that are essentially random and result from repeatedly prompting the technology, defendants told a federal judge in Colorado.

  • February 02, 2026

    Judge Hands Valve Summary Judgment Victories On Eve Of Patent Troll Trial

    SEATTLE — In two orders, a Washington federal judge denied a request from a company accused by video game entity Valve Corp. of being a “patent troll” to grant summary judgment while simultaneously narrowly granting summary judgment in Valve’s favor; the judge said that a previous suit by the defendant entities was a breach of an earlier settlement agreement.

  • February 02, 2026

    4th Circuit: Permanent Injunction Moots Appeal Of Preliminary Injunction Denial

    RICHMOND, Va. — A Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel dismissed as moot a defendant-appellant’s challenge of a North Carolina federal judge’s denial of its requested preliminary injunction against the plaintiff entity in a dispute over trademarks involving the word “Grin,” holding that the judge’s subsequent grant of summary judgment in the plaintiff’s favor has “deprived this appeal of any legal or practical consequence.”

  • January 30, 2026

    Federal Circuit Affirms Noninfringement Finding In Streaming Patent Fight

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Jan. 29 affirmed a California federal judge’s summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Hulu LLC, despite finding that the judge erroneously narrowed the meaning of a claim phrase, because Hulu’s accused systems did not perform the relevant processes in the order required by the patent.

  • January 30, 2026

    Judge Partly Dismisses Architect’s Complaint Alleging Partial Home Copying

    JACKSON, Miss. — A plaintiff architectural design entity can pursue claims that a property sales company infringed the design of a single element of a copyrighted home design, a federal judge in Mississippi held, but it could not pursue claims based on technical drawings the judge found were not part of the registration of the architectural work.

  • January 29, 2026

    Judge Tells Perplexity To Prove Jurisdiction Over Mark Cancellation Claim

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California federal judge ordered Perplexity AI Inc. to show whether the court has jurisdiction to hear its trademark cancellation counterclaim after the judge dismissed with prejudice the plaintiff data analytics company’s trademark infringement complaint in the wake of the plaintiff company’s repeated failures to heed warnings that it could not appear pro se.

  • January 29, 2026

    Federal Circuit: Analytics Company Failed To Show Information Was ‘Trade Secret’

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A business analytics company’s failure to adequately identify and define its alleged trade secrets in a dispute with another analytics company and its co-founders justified a Utah federal judge’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the defendant entities, a Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held Jan. 28.