On December 11, 2019, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that the term “expense” under §145 of the Patent Act does not include the salaries of the USPTO’s legal personnel, and put an end to the USPTO’s attempts to recover attorneys’ fees in court challenges to its decisions. The Peter v. NantKwest, Inc. dispute arose after … Continue Reading
On Friday, November 8, 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States Patent and Trademark Office et al. v. Booking.com BV, to decide whether “the addition by an online business of a generic top-level domain (“.com”) to an otherwise generic term can create a protectable trademark.” The case involves the travel website Booking.com, which … Continue Reading
Continuing to feed its appetite for trademark rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently granted petitions for certiorari of two Second Circuit decisions implicating trademark law. The first case could change the burden of proof for recovering an infringer’s profits as damages in trademark disputes, while the second case may limit a defendant’s ability to … Continue Reading
In 2018, Avengers: Infinity War marked several milestones, one of which was the apparent death of half of our heroes with a single snap of the fingers (i.e., the now-infamous “Snappening” by the uber-villain Thanos). In preparing to see Avengers: End Game, I re-watched Infinity War, which got me thinking about the current state of software … Continue Reading
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Trademark Act’s section 2(a) provision precluding registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling came in the case of Iancu v. Brunetti, an appeal from the U.S. Trademark Office’s refusal to register the trademark F.U.C.T. for a line … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
When it comes to protecting creative works, copyright law in theory offers the most instant form of protection. Under the Copyright Act of 1976, a copyright author gains exclusive rights in the work immediately upon its creation. 17 U.S.C. § 106. Notwithstanding, the author may not institute a civil suit for infringement of those exclusive … Continue Reading
On January 11, the United States Supreme Court announced it accepted the Food Marketing Institute’s cert petition to review the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media. This represents the latest development toward resolving a conundrum we have described here before (October 2018/June 2018)—how to protect confidential and trade secret information … Continue Reading
In early November, we reported that the U.S. Supreme Court was considering whether to hear Olivia de Havilland’s appeal of the dismissal of her right-of-publicity and false-light privacy claims against the producers of the popular television miniseries Feud, in which de Havilland didn’t care for the way she was depicted. We predicted that, in light … Continue Reading
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in the case of Iancu v. Brunetti. This, as you may recall, is an appeal regarding the constitutionality of the Lanham Trademark Act’s section 2(a) provision precluding registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks. In the wake of the much-discussed 2017 Supreme Court decision in Matal v. … Continue Reading
In my September 11 blog post, Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death?, I noted that the First Circuit’s decision in Tempnology—that rejection of a trademark license in bankruptcy divested the nondebtor licensee of its right to use the trademark—was subject to the licensee’s pending petition for certiorari. On October 26, 2018, the United States Supreme … Continue Reading
Sometime this month, the United States Supreme Court will announce whether it will grant certiorari to hear an appeal of Olivia de Havilland’s case against the producers of the popular television miniseries Feud. The series dramatized the legendary animosity between old Hollywood superstars Joan Crawford and Bette Davis. De Havilland—portrayed by Catherine Zeta Jones—was a … Continue Reading
In this 2018-19 term, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments on an issue that has long divided copyright attorneys and the courts that hear their cases. Under the Copyright Law, Section 411(a), a copyright owner may not bring an infringement lawsuit until the copyright owner has registered the copyright with the U.S. Copyright … Continue Reading
The Supreme Court recently issued an opinion that will increase the certainty for parties to a patent dispute of whether the validity of challenged claims will be decided in a post-grant review process or federal court. SAS Institute v. Iancu involved review of an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding, which is a post-grant review proceeding that is … Continue Reading
On June 26, 2017, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the “disparagement clause” in Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment in Matal v. Tam, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) has updated (Examination Guide 1-17) its … Continue Reading
Background Yesterday, six months after hearing oral argument (and nearly six years after Simon Tam filed his trademark application for “THE SLANTS”), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in In re Tam, holding that the disparagement clause in Section 2(a) of the Lanham … Continue Reading
…but can only collect damages for six years prior to filing suit. In a stunning upset of years of jurisprudence (Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, prior patent act), the U.S. Supreme Court determined that laches (an equitable remedy) cannot be applied within the “statute of limitations” period of six years (a legal remedy for damages). … Continue Reading
On Wednesday, January 18, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Lee v. Tam, a case reviewing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s en banc decision in In re Tam holding that the disparagement provision in Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1052(a), was facially invalid under … Continue Reading
The Founding Fathers ensconced intellectual property rights into the fabric of the original Constitution. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and … Continue Reading
The weekend’s news about Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing was a shocker. Justice Scalia always appeared so vigorous that he seemed much younger than his 79 years. His high level of legal scholarship was always on display. Justice Scalia was nothing if not a formidable jurist. … Continue Reading
