The Federal Circuit appeared likely to vacate a $12.7 million copyright infringement award against the federal government on Wednesday, pressing attorneys for a software developer and the government to answer what instructions should be given to the claims court on remand.
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Fed. Circ. Leans Toward Vacating $12.7M Copyright Award

By Madeline Lyskawa

The Federal Circuit appeared likely to vacate a $12.7 million copyright infringement award against the federal government on Wednesday, pressing attorneys for a software developer and the government to answer what instructions should be given to the claims court on remand.

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Judge Says $40B Ligado Suit Looks 'Destined' For High Court

By Christopher Cole

Network company Ligado's nearly $40 billion lawsuit accusing the government of wrongly blocking its use of a certain slice of the airwaves seems likely to eventually land in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Circuit's chief judge said Wednesday.

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Fed. Circ. Backs Infringement Immunity For NASA Contractor

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday endorsed a California federal judge's decision that a NASA contractor doesn't have to face a patent infringement suit from a pair of California men, given that its allegedly infringing use was authorized by the federal government.

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'Extraordinary Circumstances': Elon Musk Faces USAID Depo

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Maryland federal judge on Wednesday said billionaire Elon Musk must testify in litigation filed by U.S. Agency for International Development employees claiming he illegally dismantled the foreign aid agency while head of the advisory organization known as the Department of Government Efficiency, saying "extraordinary circumstances justify the deposition."

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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LITIGATION

Brief

Aerospace Workers Ask 4th Circ. To Revive 401(k) Fund Suit

By Elaine Briseño

Workers who alleged RTX Corp. illegally used forfeited retirement funds to pay the company's 401(k) contribution have asked the Fourth Circuit to revive their case after a Virginia federal judge ruled they had failed to state a claim.

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Brief

Chancery Asked For 120-Day Stay Of Virgin Galactic Suit

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has been asked to temporarily pause a stockholder derivative suit accusing Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson and other leaders of the spaceflight company of concealing safety risks while selling stock, as related litigation over similar allegations moves toward possible settlement in federal court.

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PEOPLE

Ex-Pentagon GC Joins Bradley Arant's National Security Team

By Jack Rodgers

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has hired the former legal adviser to the National Security Council, who is joining the team in Nashville, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., to work with the firm's Government Enforcement & Investigations and Defense & National Security teams, the firm announced Tuesday.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

New Biotech Nat'l Security Controls May Have Blunted Impact

While the newly enacted federal prohibition against contracting with certain biotechnology providers associated with countries of concern may have consequences on U.S. companies' ability to develop drugs, the restrictions may prove to be less problematic for the industry than the significant publicity around their passage would suggest, say attorneys at Wilson Sonsini.

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Bid Protest Data Contradicts Claims That System Is Inefficient

Recently released data debunks the narrative that the federal procurement system is overwhelmed by excessive or meritless bid protests, revealing instead that the process is healthy and functioning as intended, says Joshua Duvall at Duvy Law.

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Takeaways From The DOJ Fraud Section's 2025 Year In Review

Former acting Principal Deputy Chief Sean Tonolli of the U.S. Department of Justice's Fraud Section, now at Cahill Gordon, analyzes key findings from the section’s annual report — including the changes implemented to adapt to the new administration’s priorities — and lays out what to watch for this year.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Resilience

Resilience is a skill acquired through daily practices that focus on learning from missteps, recovering quickly without internalizing defeat and moving forward with intention, says Nicholas Meza at Quarles & Brady.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Meet New Paul Weiss Chairman Scott Barshay

By Anna Sanders

New Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP chair Scott Barshay is a rainmaker who most recently led the corporate department, guiding clients through some of the largest transactions in recent history after joining the firm's New York office a decade ago.

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Judge Who Resigned To Criticize Trump Had Faced Inquiry

By Chris Villani

Former Massachusetts U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf was the subject of an inquiry into potential misconduct when he announced his November resignation, a decision he said at the time was motivated by a desire to speak out against the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the matter.

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Judge Says AI Errors Show Atty Can't 'Learn' From Mistakes

By Ivan Moreno

A New York federal judge concluded that an attorney who repeatedly submitted filings with false AI-generated citations must be punished with case-terminating sanctions against a client he was defending in a trademark lawsuit, saying Thursday that the lawyer "has not, and apparently cannot, learn from his mistakes."

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NY Times Article Excerpts Admitted In Goldstein Trial

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors pressing their case against SCOTUSblog co-founder Thomas Goldstein for tax evasion and misleading statements on mortgage applications were finally able on Thursday to present jurors with key statements the U.S. Supreme Court lawyer made to legal journalist Jeffrey Toobin for a long New York Times Magazine article.

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Texas Atty Must Explain AI 'Misuse' In Employment Case

By Lauren Berg

A prominent civil rights attorney representing a University of Texas at Austin nurse in an employment discrimination case must explain why he shouldn't be sanctioned "for his apparent misuse of artificial intelligence" to research and write a brief, a Texas federal judge ruled.

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Ex-Alex Jones Atty Asks Conn. Justices To Nix Suspension

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut attorney who formerly represented conspiracy broadcaster Alex Jones in a $1.4 billion defamation case has asked the state's highest court to consider whether it was proper for a judge to suspend his law license for violating a protective order governing Sandy Hook families' personal information.

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Deel Loses Bid To DQ Quinn Emanuel In Trade Secrets Fight

By Lauren Berg

Payroll and human resources company Deel Inc. cannot have Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP disqualified from representing its competitor Rippling in a trade secrets fight, a Delaware judge ruled Thursday, saying there is no "clear conflict" that would require booting the BigLaw firm.

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State Bar Of Texas Declines To Open Grievance On Ramey

By Emily Sawicki

The State Bar of Texas has declined to open a grievance against patent litigator William P. Ramey III after a San Francisco federal court sanctioned him and his firm, Ramey LLP, for practicing law in California without a license.

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Wash. Lawyer Faces Sanction Threat Over Alleged AI Errors

By Ben Adlin

A federal judge has ordered an attorney in Washington state to submit a sworn declaration explaining why she shouldn't be sanctioned for what opposing counsel claimed are dozens of artificial intelligence "hallucinations" across multiple case filings.

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Fake Case Pulled From Toshiba Malicious Prosecution Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A former printer toner salesman is trying to salvage his lawsuit against Toshiba after the company flagged nonexistent citations, apologizing to the California federal court in a corrected brief Thursday defending claims that the electronics company manufactured a criminal case against him and others to maintain an illegal monopoly.

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McCarter & English Wants To Torpedo $22M Malpractice Suit

By Aaron Keller

McCarter & English LLP on Thursday asked a Connecticut Superior Court judge to sink a $22.3 million professional negligence lawsuit by two struggling insurers, saying failures to provide documents or knowledgeable people to testify during pretrial depositions warrant a "harsh" end to the nearly decade-old case.

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Trump's Seattle US Atty Stays On For Now Via Title Swap

By Rachel Riley

Trump administration appointee Charles Neil Floyd will continue to be the Western District of Washington's top federal prosecutor for now, under the new title of "First Assistant U.S. Attorney," after the deadline passed Wednesday for the U.S. Senate to confirm the interim appointment.

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Klobuchar Alarmed By Exodus Of Prosecutors In Minnesota

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Thursday said she was alarmed by the surge of resignations by federal prosecutors in her state following the shooting deaths of two Minnesotans by immigration agents.

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Judiciary Backs Bill To Let Judges Carry Concealed Guns

By Courtney Bublé

The federal judiciary has come out in support of a Republican-led bill to allow judges and prosecutors to carry concealed firearms across state lines, according to a letter obtained by Law360.

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Ex-Prosecutors Call For Independent Probes Of ICE Killings

By Rose Krebs

A coalition of former federal prosecutors and civil rights attorneys is urging U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to ensure that the U.S. Department of Justice allows for "transparent, unbiased and impartial" investigations into the killings in Minneapolis last month of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration enforcement agents.

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Promo that reads 2025 Practice Groups of the Year

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

3G Capital

AeroVironment Inc.

American Bar Association

Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

Anheuser-Busch Inbev SA/NV

Apollo Global Management LLC

Apple Inc.

Atlantic Biologicals

Barron's

Bayer AG

Chevron Corp.

Deel Inc.

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd.

Gelman, Rosenberg & Freedman

International Business Machines Corp.

Jana Partners LLC

Kimberly-Clark Corp.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Group

Ligado Networks LLC

LinkedIn Corp.

McDonald's Corp.

Millicom International Cellular SA

Momentus Inc.

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Noble Energy Inc.

Outliers Inc.

Overstock.com Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

RTX Corp.

Red Hat Inc.

Renesas Electronics Corp.

Renewable Energy Group Inc.

SABMiller

Starbucks Corp.

State Bar of Texas

The Kraft Heinz Co.

The New York Times Co.

Toshiba Corp.

Ultimate Fighting Championship Ltd.

Unilever PLC

United Airlines Holdings Inc.

Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc.

Walmart Inc.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Arete Law Group

Barnes & Thornburg

Bradley Arant

Cahill Gordon

Covington & Burling

Cravath Swaine

Dalton & Associates PA

DiCello Levitt

Feldman & Associates PLLC

Goldstein & Russell

Gordon Rees

Groom Law Group

Haynes Boone

Koffsky Schwalb

Kroger Gardis

Lieff Cabraser

Manning Gross

Maschoff Brennan

Matthew G. Miller PC

McCarter & English

Munger Tolles

Murphy Ball Stratton

Paul Weiss

Quarles & Brady

Quinn Emanuel

Ramey LLP

Reed Smith

Selendy Gay

Silver Golub

Skadden Arps

Todd & Weld

Webster Book LLP

Wiggin & Dana

Wiley Rein

Wilson Sonsini

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Connecticut Insurance Department

Defense Health Agency

Delaware Court of Chancery

Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

Internal Revenue Service

Judicial Conference of the United States

Minnesota Attorney General's Office

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

National Institutes of Health

National Security Council

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

Tennessee Attorney General's Office

Texas Attorney General's Office

U.S. Agency for International Development

U.S. Air Force

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Defense

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of State

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District & Bankruptcy Courts of Southern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington

U.S. Government Accountability Office

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court

US Office of Management and Budget

United States District Court for the District of Colorado

United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana