Features

Non-Traditional Trademarks: The Elusiveness of Branding a Trend
A look at several unique trademark cases where the plaintiff fashion brand proactively sought to invalidate a competitor's non-traditional trademarks, an action which reflects a push back on increasingly aggressive litigation tactics by fashion brands seeking to blur the lines between a non-protectable fashion trend and a protectable trademark.
Features

PTO Gives Iancu More Control over PTAB Precedents
The USPTO announced revisions to PTAB procedures that formalize Andrei Iancu's control over the 250 administrative patent judges and their policy-making, while making that control more transparent.
Columns & Departments
IP News
Federal Circuit: IPR Petitioner Always Retains Burden of Establishing Timeliness<br>Federal Circuit: Framework for 'Overlapping Cases' Applies in IPR
Features

The Price to Pay for De Novo Review of PTO Decisions
<b><i>NantKwest v Iancu</b></i><p>The Federal Circuit sitting <i>en banc</i> reversed its own prior ruling and held that “all expenses of the proceeding” does not include attorneys' fees.
Columns & Departments
IP News
Federal Circuit Remands for Further Proceedings to Determine Whether RPX's Petitions for IPR Were Time Barred For Failing to Identify Its Client As a 'Real Party in Interest'<br>Federal Circuit Holds that Common Law Tribal Sovereign Immunity Cannot Shield a Patent in IPR Proceedings,br>Federal Circuit Holds that an Unsuccessful IPR Petitioner Must Show 'Concrete Plans' for Future Potentially-Infringing Activity in Order to Demonstrate Article III Standing to Appeal PTAB's IPR Decision
Features

How Disney Qualified for Design Patent for Marvel's Captain America Shield
Fans of movies about fictional superheroes are probably familiar with Captain America and his miraculous shield. Recently, however, his shield showed up in a most unlikely place: the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Features

Foreign Lost Profits Recoverable for Patent Damages
The U.S. Supreme Court recently held that a patent owner may recover lost foreign profits for infringement under 35 U.S.C. §271(f)(2). The holding in <i>WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical</i> rejects the Federal Circuit's categorical exclusion of lost profits damages for foreign sales, and expands the potential for increased damages from domestic competitors operating in foreign markets.
Features

Supreme Court to Review Post-AIA On-Sale Bar
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a question raised by Helsinn Healthcare: whether, under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) an inventor's sale of an invention to a third party that is obligated to keep the invention confidential qualifies as prior art for purposes of determining the patentability of the invention.
Columns & Departments
IP News
Federal Circuit Holds That Tribal Sovereign Immunity Cannot Be Asserted in IPR Proceedings<br>Citing 'Steep Burden' on Plaintiffs, Federal Circuit Denies Use of 'Entire Market Value Rule' in Cases Involving Multicomponent Products
Features

Affirmation of the Alien Venue Rule
<b><i>In re: HTC Corporation</b></i><p>The Federal Circuit recently addressed motions to transfer and drew a distinction between motions based upon the convenience of parties and witnesses and those for improper venue. It also clarified that the Supreme Court's recent decision in <i>TC Heartland</i> did not supplant the long-standing rule that venue laws do not protect foreign defendants.
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- Protecting Innovation in the Cyber World from Patent TrollsWith trillions of dollars to keep watch over, the last thing we need is the distraction of costly litigation brought on by patent assertion entities (PAEs or "patent trolls"), companies that don't make any products but instead seek royalties by asserting their patents against those who do make products.Read More ›
- Private Equity Valuation: A Significant DecisionInsiders (and others) in the private equity business are accustomed to seeing a good deal of discussion ' academic and trade ' on the question of the appropriate methods of valuing private equity positions and securities which are otherwise illiquid. An interesting recent decision in the Southern District has been brought to our attention. The case is <i>In Re Allied Capital Corp.</i>, CCH Fed. SEC L. Rep. 92411 (US DC, S.D.N.Y., Apr. 25, 2003). Judge Lynch's decision is well written, the Judge reviewing a motion to dismiss by a business development company, Allied Capital, against a strike suit claiming that Allied's method of valuing its portfolio failed adequately to account for i) conditions at the companies themselves and ii) market conditions. The complaint appears to be, as is often the case, slap dash, content to point out that Allied revalued some of its positions, marking them down for a variety of reasons, and the stock price went down - all this, in the view of plaintiff's counsel, amounting to violations of Rule 10b-5.Read More ›
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