Posts Tagged: "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit"

Relish Labs LLC and the Kroger Company (who own the “Home Chef” brand and mark) petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court this week, asking the Justices to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit that held Home Chef had not proven consumers were likely to confuse their marks with Grubhub and Takeaway.com’s logo.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed with a district court earlier this week that neither a settlement agreement between AbbVie and a number of generic biologics companies, nor the 132 patents owned by Abbvie covering its blockbuster drug, Humira, violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. This holding, which is significant in its own right, also has broader implications for patent-antitrust analysis.

On August 20, the Seventh Circuit in Epic Systems Corp. v. Tata Consultancy Services Ltd & Tata America Interntional Corp d/b/a/ TCS America No. 1950 (7th Cir. Aug. 20, 2020) upheld an award of damages against Tata for theft of trade secrets relating to Epic’s health care software. After a jury trial in 2016, a jury found that Tata must pay $240 million in a compensatory damages to Epic, and $700 million in punitive damages. The district court later struck $100 million in compensatory damages and reduced the punitive damage award from $700 million to $280 million under a Wisconsin statute that caps punitive damage awards at two times compensatory damages. In the August 20 decision, the Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court that the jury could award punitive damages but found that the $280 million punitive damages amount was excessive and remanded the case with instructions to reduce that award.

On June 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit decided Bodum USA, Inc. v. A Top New Casting Inc., No. 18-3030, 2019 (7th Cir. June 12, 2019). The case was based on Bodum’s allegation that A Top infringed Bodum’s unregistered trade dress in its Chambord® French press coffee maker design and squarely addressed the doctrine of “functionality” of trade dress. The court addressed two important issues related to functionality: (1) what type of evidence is necessary to prove functionality of a particular design and (2) under what circumstances are utility patents relevant to that analysis?