Analysis

Reported Plan For Value-Based Patent Fees Unnerves Experts

By Ryan Davis

A proposal reportedly under consideration by the Trump administration to charge patent owners a new fee based on the value of their patents has spurred numerous questions and concerns among experts, who say the idea appears nearly unworkable and could hinder innovation.

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New Guidelines Aim To Reform Counterfeiter Case Practices

By Ivan Moreno

Amid federal courts' growing concern toward a legal strategy of joining dozens of alleged counterfeiters in a single complaint, plaintiff attorneys who are among the most frequent filers of such cases have announced what they consider best practices for the litigation.

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Feature

Haynes Boone Power Team Keeps Winning At Fed. Circ.

By Dani Kass

Debbie McComas and Angela Oliver have emerged as the duo to beat at the Federal Circuit, as the Haynes Boone partners have taken victories in each of the seven patent appeals between them they've argued this year.

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Stewart Undoes PTAB Decisions Axing Chip Patents

By Adam Lidgett

The acting head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has thrown out a pair of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions that semiconductor companies like Texas Instruments were able to show two Greenthread chip patents are invalid.

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2nd Circ. Vacates 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Case Atty Fees

By Elliot Weld

The Second Circuit on Tuesday agreed with a Manhattan federal judge that one theater company's performances of a stage version of "To Kill a Mockingbird" didn't infringe the licenses of another, but vacated a $200,000 attorney fees award and directed the judge to reconsider.

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Q&A

Federal Cuts Shake Up Clinical Research Funding Landscape

By Hannah Albarazi

As the Trump administration makes deep cuts to clinical research funding, healthcare attorneys worry that the delicate balance between federal grants and private investment is at risk. Crowell & Moring LLP partner Linda Malek talks to Law360 Healthcare Authority about the industry's concerns.

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Rising Star: Robins Kaplan's Jessica Gutierrez

By Dani Kass

Robins Kaplan LLP's Jessica Gutierrez helped an artificial Christmas tree company win a $42 million patent infringement verdict and secured a $13 million judgment in a software company's copyright litigation against the U.S. government, earning her a spot among the intellectual property attorneys under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.

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Del. Judge Lets Realtek Beat IP Suit With Alice Invalidation

By Dani Kass

A Delaware federal judge has invalidated the communications patent Media Content Protection LLC accused Realtek Semiconductor Corp. of infringing, finding it doesn't meet patent eligibility requirements.

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Fed. Circ. Backs Netflix's PTAB Win In Computing Patent Fight

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit won't revive a computing patent owned by a Broadcom Corp. unit, backing a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that found Netflix was able to prove that all of the claims in the patent were invalid.

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Teva, Amneal End Case Over Listing Inhaler IP In Orange Book

By Dani Kass

A New Jersey federal judge on Tuesday closed litigation between Teva and Amneal, which had led to the Federal Circuit's major decision that patents for Teva's inhalers don't belong in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book. 

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Brief

PTAB Will Now Decide All Grounds In AIA Reviews

By Dani Kass

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday ordered administrative patent judges to address all grounds raised in America Invents Act petitions when issuing their final decisions.

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Authors Fight Anthropic's Appeal Of Fair Use Ruling

By Elliot Weld

Authors battling artificial intelligence firm Anthropic over its use of their books to train a large language model have urged a California federal judge to disallow a mid-case appeal of his ruling that Anthropic could use books it bought legally, but not the millions it purportedly lifted from online libraries of pirated works.

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Jack Daniel's Toy TM Win Violates Free Speech, 9th Circ. Told

By Dorothy Atkins

The maker of a dog toy parodying Jack Daniel's iconic whiskey bottle has urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse a finding that its "Bad Spaniels" toy tarnishes Jack Daniel's mark, arguing the ruling constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination over "mild poo jokes" that weren't similar to famous Jack Daniel's marks.

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9th Circ. Won't Revive Drag Queen's Likeness Claims

By Elliot Weld

The Ninth Circuit has affirmed Netflix's win in a case brought by a famous Los Angeles drag queen who sued over use of her likeness in an adult animation show, saying it had not been shown that Netflix used that likeness as a mark rather than some other expressive function. 

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Mexican Media Co. Wants Fox's Soccer Licensing Suit Tossed

By Alex Lawson

A Mexican media company facing contract breach claims from Fox Cable Network Services LLC over soccer broadcasting rights called on a California federal judge Monday to dismiss the case, asserting that the U.S. media giant's case is too thin and that litigation already underway in Mexico should take precedence.

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Motorola Seeks Contempt Ruling In Hytera Trade Secret Fight

By Adam Lidgett

Motorola has urged an Illinois federal court to hold Hytera in contempt for selling off its Teltronic subsidiary without telling the court or Motorola, saying it still owes Motorola hundreds of millions of dollars toward a $489 million debt it owes in a trade secrets fight over two-way radios.

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Tech Pro Says Alleged Software Copying Was 'Obvious' Joke

By Jamie Lennox

A payments company's former head of technology has denied copying the company's software to help build a rival platform, telling a London court that his ex-employer has taken a joke about pinching the code "out of context."

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Eye Drop Ruling Clarifies Importance Of Patent Phrasing

The Federal Circuit's recent ruling in Eye Therapies v. Slayback, rejecting the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's interpretation of "consisting essentially of," highlights the importance of using clear and consistent terms throughout a patent's filing history to shield it against future challenges, says Liliana Di Nola-Baron at Panitch Schwarze.

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How Courts Are Addressing The Use Of AI In Discovery

In recent months, several courts have issued opinions on handling discovery issues involving artificial intelligence, which collectively offer useful insights on integrating AI into discovery and protecting work product in connection with AI prompts and outputs, says Philip Favro at Favro Law.

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Loeb & Loeb NY Office Safe After Shooting In Its Building

By Kevin Penton

Loeb & Loeb LLP's attorneys and staff are all safe and accounted for after a shooter on Monday killed four people at the Midtown Manhattan building where the law firm has an office, according to the firm.

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Trump Calls 'Blue Slip' Process 'Probably Unconstitutional'

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump on Tuesday railed against the long-standing tradition for home state senators to have essentially veto power over U.S. attorney and district court nominee picks and called on U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to abandon the process.

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Senate Confirms DOJ Official Emil Bove To 3rd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-49 on Tuesday night to confirm Emil Bove, one of President Donald Trump's former attorneys and a top official at the U.S. Department of Justice, as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

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Jackson Walker Gets Another Deal On Judge-Romance Claims

By Bonnie Eslinger

Jackson Walker LLP has reached another settlement with former bankruptcy clients to resolve fee disputes related to the concealed romance of a former partner with the firm and former Texas bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, according to a motion filed Tuesday in Texas federal court.

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DOJ's Top Antitrust Deputy, Merger Chief Both Fired

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice has ousted two of its top Antitrust Division officials, citing insubordination amid growing signs of tension between merger enforcers and the wider Trump administration.

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Miss. AG Says Judge's TRO Over State DEI Ban Full Of Errors

By Gina Kim

Mississippi's attorney general wants a federal judge to explain "indisputable factual inaccuracies" in his decision pausing enforcement of a state law prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion in public schools, saying Monday that the judge's original order contained nonexistent allegations, wrongly identified plaintiffs and defendants, and quoted terms that don't appear in the legislative text.

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Mich. Judge Sanctions Attys For False Case Quotations

By Matt Perez

A Michigan federal judge on Monday ordered plaintiffs' attorneys in two cases against a robotics company to pay for the time opposing counsel took in filing an additional briefing because of false case quotations.

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Judge Breaks Up Review Of Challenge To New Jersey US Atty

By Jake Maher and Lauren Berg

The chief judge for Pennsylvania's Middle District, who is overseeing a drug trafficking case in New Jersey, on Tuesday evening issued a directive bifurcating a challenge to acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba's authority in order to analyze whether the defendants are entitled to relief if she was illegally appointed.

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What To Watch As Deadline Looms For Jay Clayton At SDNY

By Phillip Bantz

The clock is ticking closer to the expiration of Jay Clayton's appointment as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, setting him on a likely collision course with the district's judges, who have the power to vote on whether he can continue overseeing one of the top prosecutorial offices in the country.

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Attys Blast 'Chilling Message' Of Judge Shopping Sanctions

By Ryan Boysen

Three attorneys sanctioned for judge shopping while challenging an Alabama statute that criminalizes gender-affirming care have asked the Eleventh Circuit to clear their names, castigating the process that led to their censure as "so extraordinary as to approach unprecedented."

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Md. Bar Warns DOJ Suit Risks Undermining Legal Norm

By Britain Eakin

The Maryland State Bar Association on Tuesday warned of sweeping impacts if a federal judge doesn't dismiss the Trump administration's suit over a standing order that prohibits the immediate removal of immigrants challenging their detention, saying it will compromise cornerstone pillars of the legal system.

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Judiciary Advises Not Filling Next 10th Circ. Vacancy, For Now

By Lauren Berg

The Judicial Conference of the United States is recommending not filling the next vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and a handful of district courts, for now, citing a "consistently low per-judgeship caseload" in those jurisdictions.

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DOJ Says Wis. Judge Not Immune To Charges In ICE Incident

By Jack Karp

A Wisconsin state judge cannot duck criminal charges for allegedly helping an undocumented immigrant evade arrest in her courtroom, because judicial immunity applies only to civil suits and official judicial acts, the U.S. Department of Justice told a federal judge Tuesday.

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Posner Wage Theft Claims Should Be Revived, 7th Circ. Told

By Emily Sawicki

A former staffer for retired U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner has asked the Seventh Circuit to review federal court rulings in his loss of wage theft claims against the ex-judge, arguing an Indiana federal judge permitted a botched discovery process and prematurely dismissed claims while fact issues remained.

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Seeger Weiss Named Lead Negotiation Counsel In J&J MDL

By Carla Baranauckas

A New Jersey federal judge overseeing long-running multidistrict federal litigation against Johnson & Johnson over its talcum powder products has appointed Christopher A. Seeger of Seeger Weiss LLP to lead a negotiation team to guide plaintiffs through settlement talks.

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Ga. Senators Accuse DA Of 'Stonewalling' In Testimony Fight

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia Senate committee investigating Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' prosecution of President Donald Trump and others in an election interference case told the state's Supreme Court that her bid to escape its subpoena for her to testify before the committee seeks "to reward her stonewalling" and "delay tactics."

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Brief

Former US Atty Named New Chief Judge For Eastern Mich.

By Danielle Ferguson

U.S. District Judge Stephen J. Murphy III became the newest chief judge for the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, succeeding U.S. District Judge Sean F. Cox, who retired from the bench the same day, the district court announced Tuesday.

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