IP Law News

Cox Can’t Escape $1 Billion Copyright Verdict, Can Reduce Award

Patent Office Aggregates Covid-19 Information on Its Site

Latest Stories

‘Sock It Up’ Trademark Not Barred By ‘Sock It To Me,’ Board Says

Two sock sellers’ similar trademarks—"Sock It Up” and “Sock It To Me"—can coexist because consumers would perceive their idiom references with “completely different connotations,” a trademark tribunal said.

Inovio Tells Court Supplier Is Holding Covid Vaccine ‘Hostage’

Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. alleges in a court filing that its experimental coronavirus vaccine is being “held hostage” by a supplier that won’t turn over critical information needed to make it on a larger scale.

Monster Energy Sues Energy-Efficiency Company Over Trademarks

Monster Energy Co. sued an energy-efficiency company called Energy Monster in Florida federal court Wednesday for allegedly infringing its trademarks.

Hanwha Loses Bid to Revive Patent Case Against Solar Rivals

U.S. International Trade Commission affirmed a trade judge’s findings that Hanwha Q Cells’s patent for a way to make solar cells wasn’t infringed by rivals, according to a notice posted on the agency’s website.

Volkswagen Gets Tribunal OK to Challenge Engine Patent

Volkswagen will get an opportunity before a government tribunal to invalidate an engine control patent the automaker is accused of infringing.

Fed. Cir. Mulls Roche’s Bid to Halt Sales of Amgen Biosimilar

Roche Holding AG‘s Genentech Inc. tried to convince the Federal Circuit at argument that Amgen Inc. didn’t provide sufficient notice before launching its biosimilar of Genentech cancer therapy drug Avastin.

British Telecom’s Mobile Information-Tailoring Patent Invalid

A British Telecommunications PLC patent covering a method for transmitting relevant information to a mobile phone user based on their location is invalid, the Federal Circuit said Wednesday in response to a challenge by IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Featured Topics

copyrights

Cox Can’t Escape $1 Billion Copyright Verdict, Can Reduce Award

Internet Archive’s Public Interest Defense May Fall Short

Jury’s Copyright Award Against Builder Deemed Excessive

patents

Hanwha Loses Bid to Revive Patent Case Against Solar Rivals

Volkswagen Gets Tribunal OK to Challenge Engine Patent

Fed. Cir. Mulls Roche’s Bid to Halt Sales of Amgen Biosimilar

trademarks

‘Sock It Up’ Trademark Not Barred By ‘Sock It To Me,’ Board Says

Monster Energy Sues Energy-Efficiency Company Over Trademarks

Volkswagen Gets Tribunal OK to Challenge Engine Patent

Additional Topics

In Brief

Case: Trademarks/Discovery (T.T.A.B.)

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board denied Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor B.V.'s motion for leave to take additional depositions beyond the ten-deposition limit of Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(a)(2) in its challenge to United Yacht Transport’s attempt to register the mark “United Yacht Transport” for transport of yachts by boat. Spliethoff opposed the registration on grounds of fraud, likelihood of confusion, and nonuse in commerce. Spliethoff sought to depose six additional parties, but the board determined that it made the sufficient particularized showing as to why discovery is necessary as to only one of the ten previously taken depositions. Spliethoff’s Bevrachtingskantoor B.V. v. United Yacht Transport LLC dba United Yacht Transport, 2020 BL 205176, TTAB, Opposition No. 91219179 , 6/2/20

…

Case: Patents/Obviousness (P.T.A.B.)

Claims of Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc.'s patent directed to a fluorescence detection system, having a movable excitation and detection module, for use with a thermal cycler, aren’t unpatentable as obvious over prior art, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled. Prior patents for a movable compact scan head having multiple scanning modalities that supports two or more optical systems within a small space; that teach an automated multi-purpose laboratory work station for analytical chemistry and biological experimental assay procedures; that disclose a method and apparatus for measuring the luminescence, fluorescence, and absorption of a sample in which the excitation and/or detection wavelengths are tunable; and that describe a method and an apparatus for performing thermal shift assays; a Chinese publication that describes a device comprising a thermal cycling unit, a fluorescence detection unit, and a control circuit, which are all disposed in a housing, and a computer disposed outside the housing, where the fluorescence detection unit is located below the thermal cycling unit; and patent publications that describe an optical measuring head, particularly for an automatic laboratory chemical or biochemical reaction analyzer designed to determine the dosing of components contained in samples after mixing with reagents in wells of a reaction analysis plate; and that describes an optical instrument for quantitative monitoring of DNA replication in a PCR apparatus; don’t teach the claims, the board found. Agilent Technologies, Inc., v. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., 2020 BL 204727, P.T.A.B., IPR 2019-00271 , 6/2/20

…

Case: Patents/Eligibility (P.T.A.B.)

Claims of Gree Inc.'s patent for a game program with enhanced strategic gameplay, in which a plurality of characters are operated with simple operation, a computer control method, and an information processing apparatus, are unpatentable as directed to patent-ineligible subject matter, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board determined. The board determined that the patent is directed to the abstract idea of associating game objects and moving one or more of the objects, and that the challenged claims don’t recite any inventive concept necessary to transform the abstract idea into patent-eligible subject matter. But the board found that the claims aren’t unpatentable as indefinite or further limiting. Supercell Oy, v. Gree, Inc., 2020 BL 204728, P.T.A.B., PGR 2019-00018, 6/2/20

…

Case: Trademarks/Abandonment (N.D. Cal.)

Neo4j Inc.'s motion to strike Graph Found. Inc.'s affirmative defense of naked license abandonment, in Neo4j’s action against Graph for trademark infringement, was granted without prejudice by a federal district court in California. In a previous action involving Neo4j, the court held that (1) the alleged confusion caused by Neo4J using “Neo4j” in its company name and product name is not sufficient to show that the mark has become the generic name for goods of the same type or that it has lost its significance as a mark such that it could be found to be abandoned, and (2) the allegation that under the open-source software license Neo4j has no right to inspect or supervise the quality of the open-source licensees’ work does not by itself indicate that Neo4j failed to exercise adequate control over the use of its mark. Here, the court adopted its previous reasoning and similarly found that Graph’s allegations are insufficient to state an affirmative defense of abandonment based on naked licensing. Neo4j, Inc. v. Graph Found., Inc., 2020 BL 201107, N.D. Cal., 5:19-cv-06226-EJD, 5/29/20

…

Coronavirus and Force Majeure Clauses

Covid-19 has legal teams exploring whether to turn to a rarely tested section of their contracts: the force majeure, or act of god, clause.