Posts in Circuit Courts of Appeal
Eighth Circuit Finds ‘Hot Pocket’ Patents Were Not Fraudulently Obtained
On June 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (the circuit court) affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in Inline Packaging, …
Lessons From Jerry Seinfeld’s Second Circuit Copyright Win
You may have seen a web series featuring Jerry Seinfeld called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. The basic premise of the show is that Seinfeld and another …
D.C. Circuit Finds No Proximate Cause in Patent Attorney Malpractice Case
On June 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (D.C. Circuit) affirmed a decision of the U.S. District Court for …
Second Circuit Affirms Welsh Government Advertising Activity Triggered Exception to Sovereign Immunity
On June 8, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Pablo Star Ltd. V, Welsh Gov’t, affirmed a decision of the U.S. …
Eleventh Circuit Finds ENGINEERED TAX SERVICES Mark Inherently Distinctive
On May 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed a decision of the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida …
Section 512 Report Suggests Fine-Tuning Knowledge and Eligibility Requirements for DMCA Safe Harbors
On May 21, the U.S. Copyright Office published a report on Section 512 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code, which governs limitations on copyright liability to materials …
Second Circuit Joins Ninth Circuit Approach to Assessing Individual Copyright Claims in Group Registrations
On May 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a decision in Sohm v. Scholastic in which the appellate court reversed in part …
Social Media Influencers Beware – Street Art Is Protected by Copyright
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently confirmed that street art is, in fact, protected by copyright law. Castillo v. G&M Realty …
PTAB Judges Should Call Balls and Strikes, Not Throw Curve Balls
The America Invents Act (AIA) outlines an adversarial, inter partes, process for reviewing patents and determining their validity. Patent owners deserve a fair process, presided over by …
Copyright Lawyers on SCOTUS Decision in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org: Expected, But Possibly Problematic
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Georgia et al. v. Public.Resource.Org., Inc. that a state code revision commission cannot claim copyright protection …
Bad Spaniels Make Bad Law: Ninth Circuit Says Dog Toy is an Expressive Work Entitled to First Amendment Protection
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that a squeaking dog toy resembling a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey is an expressive …
Sanofi Decision Presents Opportunities to Clear the Patent Thicket for Generic Pharmaceuticals
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has made brand companies think twice about creating patent thickets in the Orange Book by resuscitating an …
Ninth Circuit Alters Its Approach to Assessing Copyright Infringement in Ruling for Led Zeppelin
The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ultimately sided with Led Zeppelin in a long-running case examining whether the opening notes …
Anticompetitive or Hyper-Competitive? An Analysis of the FTC v. Qualcomm Oral Argument
On February 13, the Ninth Circuit heard oral argument in the FTC v. Qualcomm case. Counsel for Qualcomm and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argued primarily about whether …
Innovators Brace for Ninth Circuit Oral Arguments in FTC v. Qualcomm
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is set to hear oral arguments tomorrow in the closely-watched case of FTC v. Qualcomm, which will …
