In a long-awaited, nearly unanimous opinion written by Justice Kagan, resolving a circuit split described in our earlier blog post, the Supreme Court reversed the First Circuit and held that rejection by the licensor of a trademark license under Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code does not divest the licensee of its rights to continue to use the trademark under the license. Rejection has the same effect as a breach of the contract outside of bankruptcy and cannot be used to rescind the grant of the license. The licensee’s damages may be limited to prepetition, unsecured status, but that is not all the licensee is entitled to. The opinion was not unanimous not for any substantive reason, but because Justice Gorsuch felt that the dispute was moot, notwithstanding the majority’s explanation that the licensee still had a claim for money damages that the decision could have an impact on, which kept the matter live on appeal. Continue Reading
The newly released 
In July of last year, United Cannabis Corporation (“UCANN”) filed the first cannabis patent infringement lawsuit in the United States, against Pure Hemp Collective Inc. (“Pure Hemp”). It alleges that Pure Hemp infringed U.S. Patent No. 9,730,911 (“the ‘911 Patent”), which is entitled “Cannabis Extracts and Methods of Preparing and Using Same.” Each asserted independent claim of the ‘911 patent is for a “liquid cannabinoid formulation, wherein at least 95% of the total cannabinoids” is some combination of one or more specified cannabinoids. See Claims 10, 20, 25. Pure Hemp filed a motion for partial summary judgment arguing that the claims are invalid because they are directed to unpatentable natural phenomena. 