On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court held that the Lanham Act’s restriction against registration of immoral or scandalous trademarks, set forth in 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), discriminated between speech based upon viewpoint in violation of the First Amendment. Iancu, Under Sec’y of Commerce for Intellectual Prop. & Dir., Patent
Although neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night prevents the United States Postal Service from the swift completion of its appointed rounds, the Supreme Court has prevented it from challenging patents. In Return Mail, Inc. v. United States Postal Service et al., 587 U. S. ____ (2019),
The Supreme Court’s decision in Alice has alternately been wielded as a sword and a shield, but, with alarming frequency, the end result of an Alice challenge is a holding that the patent at issue is invalid. In fact, over half of patents challenged by Alice have been held to
To native Chicagoans, the Super Bowl Shuffle is revered as the hype song for the 1985 Chicago Bears who went on to win Super Bowl XX. But to the Plaintiffs in Red Label Music Publishing Inc., et al., v. Chila Productions, et al.,1 the Super Bowl Shuffle is their own
On May 22, 2019, a divided panel of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals demonstrated the true meaning of de novo review, vacating a Final Written Decision (the “Decision”) issued upon Inter Partes Review by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “Board”) invalidating certain claims of U.S. Patent No.
On May 20, 2019, in Mission Product Holdings, Inc. v. Tempnology LLC, n/k/a Old Cold LLC, the Supreme Court settled a circuit split between the Seventh and First Circuits regarding what happens to a trademark licensee’s rights under a trademark license after that license is rejected by the licensor in
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) recently designated as precedential an opinion denying the institution of petitions for inter partes review (“IPR”) on the grounds that the petitions were serial and repetitive attacks in light of an earlier-filed petition brought by another party. This case makes clear that parties
In a recent cautionary tale, the Fourth Circuit in Brammer v. Violent Hues Productions, LLC1 held that a showing of good faith by an accused copyright infringer does not weigh in favor of finding fair use. In doing so, the Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision, which held that
Trying to deal with infringing goods on the internet has been a problem as long as the internet has been around and can be frustrating for patentees. Typically, the circumstances of online marketplaces have required patentees to file direct infringement suits against potential infringers, and only after a court has
On request from the USPTO pursuant to Fed. Cir. R. 32.1(e), the Federal Circuit reissued a precedential version of a non-precedential opinion affirming the refusal to register a trademark because the specimen was not a point of sale display. This case makes clear that when relying upon a webpage specimen
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