Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit issued a revised opinion on Tuesday in the case of Abitron v. Hetronic, which was on remand from the Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision vacating a $96 million damages award for Hetronic. The Court ruled last year that Sections 1114(1)(a) and 1125(a)(1) of the Lanham Act are not extraterritorial in nature and that “‘use in commerce’ provides the dividing line between foreign and domestic applications of these provisions.” The underlying case involved Hetronic’s radio remote controls, which are used to operate heavy-duty construction equipment, such as cranes. Abitron et. al. began manufacturing and selling the products primarily in Europe under the Hetronic brand and continued to do so following the termination of their distribution agreements with Hetronic.

Lyse Brillouet has been the Chief Intellectual Property Officer and Senior Vice-President, Licensing, for the Orange Group since 2018. In the latest episode of The SEP Couch, Brillouet describes why intellectual property (IP) matters within the Orange Group, which has over 130,000 employees worldwide. IP for Orange is an important outcome of various research and development projects. Orange is a technology company, with its main objective being to bring technology and related service to its customers. In some cases, Brillouet must balance the monetization of IP and the promotion of a new standardized technology. One example of this is Orange’s strategy regarding patent pools.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission today voted in a Special Open Commission Meeting to publish and approve a final version of the January 2023 proposed rule that would ban employers from using clauses for their employees. Today’s rule allows existing non-competes to remain in force for senior executives but bans new non-competes for all workers and makes existing non-competes for all other workers unenforceable after the effective date, which is 120 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Tennessee’s recent legislative move, the ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and the Image Security Act of 2024), has garnered attention for its efforts to address the challenges posed by artificial intelligence in the music industry. Signed into law on March 21, 2024, the ELVIS Act represents a big step by a state with a huge music industry presence to prevent the unauthorized use of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated musician soundalike content. But is it enforceable?

Brazil, a country known for its abundant natural resources, is emerging as a significant player in the global renewable energy sector. Brazil has one of the highest levels of insolation in the world (ranging from 4.25 to 6.5 sun hours per day according to the Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment Project – (SWERA) and is therefore uniquely positioned to harness the power of the sun.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center (GIPC) has filed an appeal with the U.S. Department of Commerce, which denied the GIPC’s January 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking more detail about the working group behind the Biden Administration’s draft framework for considering the exercise of march-in rights. The proposed framework was published in the Federal Register in December 2023 by the Department of Commerce and the National Institutes for Standards and Technology (NIST) and included suggestions on whether and when to exercise “march-in rights” under the Bayh-Dole Act that would arguably significantly broaden the criteria for compulsory licensing of patented technology developed with federal funding.

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition for certiorari seeking clarification from the Court on the proper standard for a showing of obviousness. Vanda Pharmaceuticals filed the petition following the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) May 2023 decision invalidating Vanda’s patent on a method of using the drug tasimelteon to treat Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder. The CAFC came to its decision in part because the court said the disclosure of clinical trials was evidence that a person of ordinary skill in the art “would have had a reasonable expectation of success.” Vanda argued in its Supreme Court petition that a “predictable results” standard should be applied instead and maintained that the High Court said as much in KSR v. Teleflex.

On April 19, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) formally began implementation of Common Practice 14 (CP14) governing the agency’s treatment of applications of trademarks that are contrary to public policy or accepted principles of morality. The EUIPO’s common communication on CP14 seeks to establish a uniform understanding of the EU Trademark Directive’s prohibitions against registering such marks in light of increased numbers of trademark applications filed that have arguably triggered this statute.

The battle for innovation in AI is relentless. AI Armor by Robert Plotkin is more than just a book about AI. Knowledge is power, and AI Armor provides those brave souls innovating in this space with actionable intelligence they can–and really must–use when navigating the turbulent waters of a tech industry experiencing a pivot moment.

Like most patent attorneys, I get multiple emails each month for artificial intelligence tools purporting to help patent attorneys draft patent applications. I have done demos, and I have no doubt that in five years almost all patent drafting practitioners will be using these generative AI tools in some capacity. But I am also convinced that these tools will not be especially helpful in drafting claims.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: HP sues a Chinese competitor for infringing on cloud computing patents; three federal agencies launch portal to report anti-competitive practices in the healthcare sector; and a European court rejects Pablo Escobar’s family to register the drug lord’s name as a trademark.

As the hit sitcom Young Sheldon comes to an end next month, a look back at the series offers an opportunity for young inventors to learn about inventorship. The coming-of-age show centers around a boy genius, Sheldon, who has run the gamut of growing up in expedited fashion—experiencing high school, college dorm life, and even a first (failed) kiss (attempt), all before being eligible to drive. Another milestone in Sheldon’s life—his first inventorship dispute—shows that it doesn’t take a boy genius to become a young inventor.

Times are changing at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)! Not only are there rumors that the Senate IP Subcommittee may be a matter of several weeks away from marking up the PREVAIL Act and voting it out of committee, but the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has finally issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) relating to several changes to the Code of Federal Regulations as they pertain to patent challenges at the PTAB.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that will be officially published in the Federal Register tomorrow and that addresses a subset of issues from the controversial April 2023 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM). USPTO Director Kathi Vidal received criticism following the ANPRM, most notably from Congress. In a House IP Subcommittee meeting held last year, members of the Subcommittee expressed confusion about the ANPRM and suggested Vidal may have been exceeding her authority with some of the proposals.