Analysis

Rising PTAB Filings Follow Surge In Patent Cases

By Theresa Schliep

The number of petitions filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ticked up last year, following a similar increase in federal court litigation and suggesting that activity at the board has somewhat stabilized, according to a new report.

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Analysis

These Firms Are Landing The Most PTAB Work

By Theresa Schliep

Intellectual property powerhouse Fish & Richardson again secured the top spot on a list of firms appearing in the most trials over the past three years in front of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

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Judiciary Committee Clears Squires For Full Senate Vote

By Dani Kass

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee approved former Goldman Sachs intellectual property attorney John Squires to serve as U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director on Thursday, putting his nomination in the hands of the full Senate.

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PNC Gets Fed. Circ. To Undo Its $223M Patent Loss To USAA

By Ryan Davis

The Federal Circuit on Thursday wiped out two jury verdicts totaling nearly $223 million that United Services Automobile Association won against PNC Bank on mobile check deposit patents, finding the patents cover only abstract ideas.

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Mitek's Bid To Be Cleared On USAA Patents Fails At Fed. Circ.

By Ryan Davis

The Federal Circuit on Thursday barred banking software company Mitek Systems from seeking a declaration that it doesn't infringe United Services Automobile Association's mobile check-deposit patents, saying Mitek has not shown that it is likely to be sued.

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10th Circ. Says Timer Still Ticking In Sycamore Bakery TM Suit

By Adam Lidgett

The Tenth Circuit on Thursday backed a lower court decision shooting down a bid to terminate an order requiring the patriarch of a bakery business to hand over his portion of an LLC as part of a long-running feud with EarthGrains Baking Cos. Inc.

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Panasonic Can't Get Fees After $1 Touchscreen Tech Loss

By Christine DeRosa

A Michigan federal judge on Thursday ruled that Panasonic can't collect nearly $318,000 in legal fees after Panasonic unit Sanyo North America Corp. was found to be on the hook for $1 in damages earlier this year to electronics company Oldnar Corp. for wrongly using its touchscreen technology to develop a vehicle console for General Motors.

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USPTO Tells Fed. Circ. Not To Review Ruling In Xencor Case

By Adam Lidgett

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has found that the full Federal Circuit doesn't need to review a decision rejecting Xencor Inc.'s application for an antibody patent, saying that a panel of the appellate court applied the right standard.

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8th Circ. Upholds Block On Minn. Generic-Drug Price Law

By Lauren Berg

The Eighth Circuit on Thursday backed a lower court's preliminary injunction blocking a Minnesota law that prohibits pharmaceutical manufacturers from imposing an "excessive" price increase on generic or biosimilar drugs, agreeing that the law is likely unconstitutional in regulating prices charged nationwide.

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Neb. Accuses Temu Of 'Siphoning' User Data, Fueling IP Theft

By Allison Grande

Chinese bargain-shopping app Temu is unlawfully gathering sensitive information from minors and other customers through secretly installed malware and is allowing intellectual property infringement to "thrive" on its platform, Nebraska's attorney general alleged in a sweeping new lawsuit. 

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Deloitte Consulting Hit With TM Suit Over AI Platform

By Adam Lidgett

A blockchain-focused web platform that offers artificial intelligence tools has launched a lawsuit in New York federal court accusing Deloitte Consulting of infringing its trademark rights with its generative AI services product.

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NC BBQ Restaurant's Trademark Tiff Lands In Federal Court

By Hayley Fowler

The namesake behind a chain of barbecue restaurants battling over their shared trademark being used on branded sauces has extricated a complaint from the North Carolina Business Court accusing it of Lanham Act violations, saying those claims belong in federal court.

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Fantasy Sports Site Claims Ex-Director Took IP To DraftKings

By Rachel Riley

Fantasy sports platform PrizePicks is suing its former social media director in Washington federal court over his lateral move to DraftKings, accusing him of taking the company's "most closely guarded" marketing trade secrets to the competitor by downloading those documents to his personal ChatGPT account before his departure.

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Nutrien Says Ex-Employee Helped NC Rival Steal Office, Staff

By Hayley Fowler

The retail arm of global fertilizer company Nutrien Ltd. has accused a former crop consultant of swiping its trade secrets before decamping for a rival, saying in a federal lawsuit that he colluded with his new employer to hijack a branch office, its staff and its customers.

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Ga. Financial Biz Lodges Trade Secrets Suit Against Rival

By Christine DeRosa

Atlanta Deferred Exchange Inc. has sued Deferred Inc. and a former employee who now works for the rival company, claiming they infringed trademarks and lifted trade secrets to bolster the competing financial advisory and consultancy business.

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Brief

Security Co. Drops Trade Secrets Claims Against Contractor

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut security monitoring company on Thursday dropped a federal lawsuit alleging that a sales contractor bought a secret list of more than 20,000 clients from a service technician and hatched a plan to sell it to competitors.

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Athletes Revive Title IX Objections In NIL Settlement Appeal

By David Steele

Eight female former and current college athletes who previously objected to the Title IX implications of the $2.78 billion settlement between the NCAA and a class of former athletes seeking past name, image and likeness pay have appealed the final approval of the settlement, granted just last Friday, to the Ninth Circuit.

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Lawmakers Draw Battle Lines Over Future Of NCAA Oversight

By Alex Lawson

Following the approval of a $2.78 billion settlement giving college athletes access to a groundbreaking revenue sharing system, lawmakers are beginning the delicate process of deciding how to best regulate and manage a new era of college sports.

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Boies Schiller Recruits 3-Partner Patent Litigation Team

By Tracey Read

Boies Schiller Flexner LLP announced Thursday that it has added a team of Spencer Fane LLP partners who specialize in high-stakes patent and trade secrets disputes to its patent litigation team in Washington, D.C.

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Greenberg Traurig Adds IP Atty From Kilpatrick In NY

By Christine DeRosa

Greenberg Traurig LLP has boosted its intellectual property offerings in New York with the addition of an experienced litigator from Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP.

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Prospects And Challenges For Expert Evidence At The UPC

Expert testimony on economic or damages-related issues will likely play a larger part in Unified Patent Court proceedings in the near future, potentially presenting unique challenges for experts, counsel and judges alike, say analysts at Charles River.

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Statistics Tools Chart A Path For AI Use In Expert Testimony

To avoid the fate of numerous expert witnesses whose testimony was recently deemed inadmissible by courts, experts relying on artificial intelligence and machine learning should learn from statistical tools’ road to judicial acceptance, say directors at Secretariat.

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Attacks On Judicial Independence Tend To Manifest In 3 Ways

Attacks on judicial independence now run the gamut from gross (bald-faced interference) to systemic (structural changes) to insidious (efforts to undermine public trust), so lawyers, judges and the public must recognize the fateful moment in which we live and defend the rule of law every day, says Jim Moliterno at Washington and Lee University.

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Mass. Judge, On Stand, Denies Helping Immigrant Evade ICE

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts judge accused of approving a plan to let a man elude immigration officers by letting him leave the court through a back door seven years ago testified Thursday that was not her intent when she granted a request to let him speak with an attorney in a courthouse lockup.

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Trump's Deployment Of National Guard Illegal, Judge Says

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge on Thursday granted California's request for a temporary restraining order blocking President Donald Trump's order sending the National Guard into Los Angeles, calling the president's actions "illegal" and unconstitutional, but the decision was quickly paused by the Ninth Circuit.

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Google Fights MDL Plaintiffs' Sanctions Bid Over Lost Chats

By Emily Sawicki

Google is pushing back on a request for sanctions that a slew of advertisers and publishers have brought in their antitrust lawsuit over the company's advertising placement technology, saying the plaintiffs have not shown Google hid evidence amid the "mountains" of electronically stored information it provided.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Proctor On Civility, Civil Rules

By Cara Bayles and Steven Trader

R. David Proctor, chief judge of the Northern District of Alabama, is a leader within the federal judiciary. He's both assigned and presided over multidistrict litigation. He may write a nationwide rule governing third-party litigation funding. And he's gained internet fame for ordering two attorneys to eat lunch together.

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Avenatti Sheds 3 Years After 9th Circ. Orders Resentencing

By Gina Kim

A California federal judge on Thursday resentenced disbarred attorney Michael Avenatti to just over 11 years in federal prison for filching millions of dollars from his clients' settlement funds, reducing a 14-year sentence overturned by the Ninth Circuit and leaving Avenatti with about eight years left after time served.

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DOJ Picks Proceed Despite Worry Over Honoring Court Orders

By Courtney Bublé

Two nominations for top positions in the U.S. Department of Justice were voted out of committee on party lines on Thursday.

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Calif. Sues Trump Over 'Wildly Partisan' EV Waiver Repeal

By Dorothy Atkins

The California attorney general and 10 other states sued the Trump administration in federal court Thursday, minutes after President Donald Trump signed resolutions repealing California's Clean Air Act waiver that allowed the state to establish its own vehicle emissions standards, slamming the resolutions as unconstitutional, irrational and "wildly partisan."

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Interview

Ex-Interior Secretary Salazar On 'Coming Home' To WilmerHale

By Aebra Coe

Former U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado, who served as secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior during the Obama administration and most recently as ambassador to Mexico during the Biden administration, returned this month to WilmerHale's Denver office, which he founded in 2014.

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Justices Say Habeas Claims Can't Be Added After Judgment

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a prisoner may not add new claims to a habeas corpus petition once a final judgment is issued, cementing strict limits on repeat habeas filings prescribed by federal law.

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Justices Limit FTCA Defense In FBI Raid Case

By Chart Riggall

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday held that the Constitution's supremacy clause cannot shield the federal government from Federal Tort Claims Act suits, in the process reviving a Georgia woman's claim over an FBI raid aimed at a gang member but mistakenly carried out at her home.

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Weinstein Sex Abuse Trial Ends After Mixed, Partial Verdict

By Pete Brush

Harvey Weinstein's sexual abuse retrial ended Thursday with a Manhattan jury failing to reach a verdict on a count alleging the movie mogul raped an actress, one day after he was convicted of forcing sex on a production assistant and cleared on a third charge.

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