The Intellectual Property Strategist

Features

Don and Phil Everly's flawless harmonies that resulted in a string of hits in the 1950s and '60s regrettably ended in acrimony. The Sixth Circuit recently issued a decision in a dispute between Phil's heirs and Don over copyright ownership of the No. 1 hit "Cathy's Clown," in which concurring Judge Eric E. Murphy raised important questions about when the statute of limitations should begin to run in copyright cases and whether courts have been correctly applying the law.

Features

Surveys can provide useful evidence in litigation if they are conducted by a qualified expert employing reliable methods that survive a Daubert challenge. In the first of a series of articles drawing on our review of over 300 U.S. court rulings in cases involving surveys, including over 150 Daubert motions, we provide some suggestions for getting survey evidence admitted for consideration in court.

Features

Federal courts have long disagreed over whether the unauthorized "making available" of a plaintiff's works to the public is sufficient to constitute copyright infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act. Two June District Court decisions demonstrated the differences between the views of the Fourth and Ninth Circuits.

Columns & Departments

Federal Circuit Finds Preamble Not Limiting and Claims Reciting Means-Plus-Function Limitations Without Disclosure of Corresponding Structures Cannot Be Determined Unpatentable as Indefinite in an IPR Proceeding Federal Circuit Finds That District Court Correctly Applied the Disclosure-Dedication Doctrine In Granting a Motion for Judgment of Non-Infringement on the Pleadings

Features

Romag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. The Supreme Court, settling a circuit split, held that, although highly important, willfulness is not a prerequisite for a trademark infringement plaintiff to obtain a profits award.

Features

On May 14, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a circuit split, finding that any preclusion of litigation defenses must comply with traditional res judicata principles, and ruling that Lucky Brand was not precluded from asserting its defenses in its long-standing trademark litigation against Marcel Fashions Group

Features

Machine learning allows certain AI to create entirely new content based upon the materials it used to learn. In the process of creating new content, AI may create copies of copyrighted works in memory storage as a byproduct of its overall output sequence. This article explores authorship and ownership of such AI-generated content, and to what extent, if any, can copyrights be infringed upon when AI reproduces copyrighted works for machine learning.

Features

Holding that the parties' executed agreement mooted the issues in the case, the Federal Circuit recently reversed a district court's decision to grant summary judgment of non-infringement despite the parties' agreement. The decision builds upon prior Federal Circuit case law giving effect to settlement agreements.