On September 28, 2021, the Federal Circuit, (“CAFC”), reinstated an enhanced damages award against Cisco Systems Inc. (“Cisco”), holding that both substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding of Cisco’s willful infringement after May 8, 2012, and that Cisco’s conduct rises to the level of “wanton, malicious, and bad-faith behavior”…
Publications
Irwin IP Publications is the go-to resource for the latest updates and insights in the world of intellectual property. Over 250 articles are published on cases addressing unique issues, all of which can be found using the search tool below. Additionally, there is a collection of articles/papers and presentations that cover a wide range of topics. Whether you’re a legal professional, business owner, or simply someone passionate about IP, our publications page will provide you with all the knowledge needed to navigate this dynamic field.
On August 23, 2021, the 9th Circuit found that under California common law and statutory copyright law, owners of pre-1972 sound recordings do not have an exclusive ownership right in public performances. This holding means that owners of pre-1972 sound recordings are entitled only to royalties for the public…
Covers select developments in patent and trade secret law between 2014 and 2016, including changes to the standard of patentability and patent infringement damages, as well as the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act….
On September 23, 2021, the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of a newscaster’s statutory Pennsylvania Right of Publicity claim. It held that there was no immunity under the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) for said claim because the CDA’s carve out for intellectual property protections are not limited to federal intellectual…
On September 9, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) found that use of a catalog description of a prior art product as a prior art reference in an IPR proceeding does not create 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel as to the underlying prior art product. Further,…
On September 8, 2021, the Federal Circuit, (“CAFC”), found that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) decision to institute inter partes review (“IPR”) of four MaxPower patents, despite an agreement to arbitrate disputes regarding those patents, was unappealable. The CAFC also denied granting a writ of mandamus to…
Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) has come a long way in recent years and has allowed people to automate many tasks, but one task AI cannot do is be a named inventor on a patent, at least not yet. Stephen Thaler tried to file a patent application naming his AI machine…
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “CAFC”) recently held, again, that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) erred in finding U.S. Design Patent Nos. D612,646 and D621,645, directed to gravity feed soup can dispensers, not obvious. The decision underscores that design patents are subject to…
On August 11, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) erred in construing a key term—“fixed”—in the patent claims too narrowly. After construing the term to have special meaning, and relying on extrinsic evidence to support that…
The Federal Circuit’s (“CAFC”) recent decision in CommScope Techs. provides an important reminder regarding proving literal infringement, as well as some tips on preserving an issue for appeal. At trial, both CommScope and Dali alleged infringement of multiple patents. Following trial, both parties appealed several decisions. The CAFC, however,…
On August 2, 2021, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) held that an employment agreement stating that an employee’s future patents “shall be the property of the University [of Michigan]” did not create a present automatic assignment of the asserted patents to the University. Thus, the…
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) has again ordered a judge from the Western District of Texas to transfer a patent case into the Northern District of California. Specifically, the CAFC held that courts should disregard plaintiff’s pre-litigation attempts to manipulate venue when determining whether an…
In the latest trademark case spurred by Covid-19, the District Court of Arizona (“the court”) denied Arizona Board of Regents’ (“ASU”) motion for default judgment for a permanent injunction against an Instagram user because the vulgar Covid-related messages from the user (“John Doe”) did not rise to the level…
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) held that the Patent and Trademark Appeal Board (“PTAB”) erred by placing the burden of establishing that a purportedly anticipatory prior art reference was enabling on the challenger rather than requiring the patentee to establish that it was non-enabling. Notwithstanding…
On May 11, 2021, The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “CAFC”) held two Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (“PacBio”) patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 9,546,400 and 9,772,323 (the ’400 and ’323 Patents), invalid for lack of enablement under 35 U.S.C. § 112. PacBio had asserted these patents…
In two recent opinions, the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) reversed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) invalidation of 42 claims across two patents because of the PTAB’s “violat[ion] of a patent owner’s procedural rights” under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”). In both opinions, the CAFC stated that “the APA…
In this case, the defendants filed a Rule 12(c) motion for judgment on the pleadings aimed at four patents on the ground that all are directed to abstract ideas. As discussed below, the Western District of Washington, (“The Court”) granted the motion as to two of the patents and…
The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) held a patent directed to delivering targeted advertising via bypassing mobile devices’ security systems was directed to an abstract idea, and thus invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101. This decision reinforces that neither unclaimed functionalities, nor vague, results-centric descriptions give rise…
In the fiercely contested case of Google v. Oracle, theSupreme Court held that Google’s copying of 11,500 lines of code from Sun Microsystems’ Java Application Programming Interface (“API”) to allow software developers to leverage their accrued Java coding skills on Android constituted fair use as a matter of law….
Invalidating claims of a patent directed to system architecture combining imaging sensors with timing and control circuits, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) clarified the landscape of state-of-the-art developments at pixel scale. In a seventy-seven page final written decision, the PTAB determined five claims of U.S. Patent No….