The Intellectual Property Strategist

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, apparently in response to plaintiff's plans to use the criminal law system to press for a civil resolution of its motion for contempt, vacated L'Oreal USA Inc.'s 20-year injunction against a re-seller of genuine hair care products.

Features

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in <i>i4i L.P. v. Microsoft Corp.</i>, on appeal from the Eastern District of Texas, contains valuable lessons on a number of procedural issues, particularly on the importance of timely motions during trial in order to preserve matters for appeal.

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Cases involving family name disputes have historically presented challenges for courts, as they frequently require balancing competing interests of businesses and individuals. A particularly interesting permutation of such disputes involves well-known individuals who convey certain rights in their family name in a particular field to a third party and then later seek to re-enter the same field. A trio of recent decisions on this subject features the famous clothing designer, Joseph Abboud.

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Highlights of the latest intellectual property news from around the country.

This article explores what patent strategies should be implemented to enable infringement litigation in jurisdictions without discovery.

The Supreme Court's recent Twombly and Iqbal decisions have placed in question the validity of Form 18 by reinterpreting the mandated minimal pleading standards required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 8. An additional question has arisen as to whether the protection afforded by Form 18 is equally applicable to claims of indirect infringement or infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

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In <i>Starbucks Corp. v. Wolfe's Borough Coffee, Inc.</i>, the Second Circuit rejected the district court's determination &mdash; based on pre-TDRA case law &mdash; that trademark owners must show "substantial similarity" between the trademarks at issue in order to prevail on a dilution by blurring claim under the TDRA. Citing the language of the TDRA, the appellate court found that the new statute required only "similarity," and that even "minimal similarity" could, in the proper case, suffice to support a claim.