Other Barks & Bites for Friday, April 24: Judge Albright to Leave Federal Bench in August; China Rejects 1.27 Million Deceptive Trademark Applications; Music Labels Voluntarily Dismiss Verizon Copyright Suit

Want to have your doggie(s) featured in one of our future Barks & Bites Columns? Send your dogs photo(s) along with their name, breed (if you know it) and their age to [email protected].  All photos will be added to the IPWatchdog Dog Wall at IPWatchdog Studios and will be added to the queue of images we select from each week.  

Grace Yang’s (Patlytics) 8-year old Tibeten Spaniel – Baby.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Judge Alan Albright indicates that he will leave the Western District of Texas bench in August to re-enter private practice; Daren Tang is reelected as WIPO’s Director General; the Second Circuit corrects erroneous fair use and de minimis use rulings entered by the Southern District of New York in a judgment on the pleadings; China’s IP agency announces that it has rejected 1.27 million trademark applications over three years in a crackdown against deceptive marks; Intel’s first quarter earnings show revenue rising 7% on strong data center demand from AI companies; several major music labels enter a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice ending their copyright infringement case against Verizon; Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) tells witnesses at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that U.S. support for AI companies cannot come at the detriment of the nation’s IP system; and the Eleventh Circuit finds personal jurisdiction over Mexican-based defendants claiming ownership over the trademark rights to artist Frida Kahlo.

Bites

World IP Day 2026 Highlights IP in Sports, Global Issues With Broadcast Piracy – On Sunday, April 26, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and national IP offices around the globe will celebrate World Intellectual Property Day, which this year focuses on the role of IP in sports including the use of trademarks to manage personal brands for athletes as well as brands surrounding professional sports teams and various leagues and competitions. While IP rights support a tremendous number of jobs in the professional sports industry, piracy of live sports broadcasts through direct website visits and search engine referrals has been growing in recent years while the sale of counterfeit branded sports apparel reaches an annual loss of €851 million ($994 million USD) in the European Union alone, displacing 11% of sales there.

CNIPA Rejects 1.27M Trademark Applications in Crackdown Against Deceptive Marks – On Thursday, April 23, officials from China’s National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) announced at a press conference that the agency had rejected a total of 1.27 million trademark applications filed over the past three years and cancelled another 3,300 trademark registrations as part of the nation’s crackdown against deceptive and misleading marks. CNIPA officials expressly acknowledged the rise of “edge-ball” marks, or trademarks that are used to make deceptive claims about product quality or features, and that those types of marks were prevalent among the applications being denied in China.

Second Circuit Corrects SDNY on Fair, De Minimis Use Analyses in Michael Jordan Video Case – On Thursday, April 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling in Richardson v. Townsquare Media reversing-in-part the Southern District of New York’s judgment on the pleadings dismissing copyright claims filed against digital media company Townsquare over its use of videos recorded by Richardson depicting basketball star Michael Jordan breaking up a fight and an interview with rapper Melle Mel. The Second Circuit determined that the district court erred both in determining that Townsquare’s use of the Michael Jordan video in news articles was fair at the pleadings stage because the entirety of the video was reproduced, and in finding that Townsquare’s use of screenshots from those videos was de minimis because the secondary use is clearly copied from the original work and wholly recognizable, but did affirm dismissal as to the Melle Mel interview because that video was posted on YouTube and Townsquare’s use was unambiguously covered by YouTube’s Terms of Service.

Sen. Hawley Says U.S. Can’t Support AI to Detriment of U.S. IP System – On Wednesday, April 22, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary convened a hearing entitled Stealth Stealing: China’s Ongoing Theft of U.S. Innovation, in which the full Judiciary Committee discussed issues related to both China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property (IP) reaching up to $600 billion per year, and China’s more recent rise as a competitive innovator in critical sectors like artificial intelligence (AI). During questioning, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) responded to calls for greater support of AI development from the federal government by noting that many AI companies argue that this support requires the relaxation of IP legal protections, questioning “Will it do us any good to beat China if [the AI companies] succeed in… completely destroying our IP system?”

Judge Alan Albright to Leave the Western Texas Bench by August – On Tuesday, April 21, Bloomberg Law reported from sources familiar with the matter that U.S. District Judge Alan D. Albright of the Western District of Texas would be stepping away from the federal judiciary, the news coming one day after members of the U.S. Senate confirmed Christopher Wolfe and Andrew Davis to serve as U.S. District Judges for Western Texas. Sources indicate that Judge Albright plans to leave the federal bench by the end of August and will be returning to life as a trial lawyer, creating a vacancy in the Austin division of Western Texas.

Daren Tang Elected for Second Term as WIPO Director General Through 2032 – On Tuesday, April 21, WIPO member states voted to elect Singapore’s Daren Tang to a second term as WIPO’s Director General, serving another six-year term that will run through September 2032.

SCOTUS Denies Cert Petition on Consumer Standing in Rapunzel Trademark Case – On Monday, April 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list showing that the nation’s highest court had denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed in Curtin v. United Trademark Holdings, Inc., an appeal from the Federal Circuit challenging the appellate court’s affirming the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) application of the zone-of-interests and proximate-cause tests from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 ruling in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components. The TTAB had applied those rulings such that Curtin, as a consumer opposing a trademark application for “RAPUNZEL” on the grounds that the mark should be in the public domain, could not sustain the opposition, while Curtin’s petition contended that the Federal Circuit’s ruling split from the Third, Fifth and D.C. Circuits, which have each held that judicially-created doctrines like the zone-of-interests test do not apply to administrative proceedings.

Barks

USPTO Makes First Educational Appearance at Major Sports Event at NFL Draft – On Thursday, April 23, the first day of the National Football League (NFL) Draft got underway with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office making its first appearance at a major U.S. sports event, featuring an educational kiosk providing trademark and brand protection information and a panel on IP rights led by USPTO Director John Squires on Friday, April 24.

Ninth Circuit Reverses Denial of New Trial in Harvest Aid Copyright Case – On Wednesday, April 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an unpublished ruling in Harvest Aid, LLC v. Wax Works, Inc. vacating the Central District of California’s denial of Wax Works’ motion for new trial, concluding that the district court failed to give proper weight to Wax Works’ good faith efforts to meet and confer regarding the substance of the motion and Harvest Aid’s opportunistic refusals to cooperate.

Music Labels Dismiss Copyright Suit Against Verizon With Prejudice – On Wednesday, April 22, several major music labels filed a joint stipulation of dismissal with prejudice in the Southern District of New York, ending a copyright infringement case filed against Verizon Communications following the same infringement theory that was recently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in March’s Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment.

Norton Rose Fulbright Faces Malpractice Suit Over Abandoned Patent Application – On Tuesday, April 21, Veil Global Technologies filed a lawsuit in Illinois state court alleging legal malpractice claims against global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright and a patent attorney over allegations that the defendants failed to make a required payment during prosecution of a U.S. patent application and misled Veil Global as to the viability of the patent application.

Eleventh Circuit Finds Personal Jurisdiction From C&D Letters Over Frida Kahlo Trademarks – On Friday, April 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a ruling in Frida Kahlo Corp. v. Pinedo reversing the Southern District of Florida’s dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction after finding that the Mexican defendants, including the grand-niece of artist Frida Kahlo, purposefully availed themselves of the privilege of conducting activities in Florida by sending cease and desist (C&D) letters to Florida-based businesses claiming trademark infringement and preventing walk-through exhibitions of the work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.

This Week on Wall Street

Intel Starts to See Earnings Pop From AI Demand in Data Centers – On Thursday, April 23, U.S. chipmaker Intel Corporation reported earnings for the first quarter of 2026 showing a massive beat on earnings per share of 29 cents versus analyst expectations of 1 cent per share, as well as a 7% increase in revenue due to strong data center demand from the AI sector.

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2024 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: Denso Corp. (48th); Hitachi, Ltd. (23rd); Rambus Inc. (t-258th); Verizon Communications Inc. (122nd)
• Tuesday: Corning Inc. (86th); General Motors Co. (42nd); Komatsu Ltd. (210th); Makita Corp. (t-279th); Mitsubishi Electric Corp. (36th); NXP Semiconductors N.V. (t-139th); Samsung SDI Co., Ltd. (203rd); Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd. (199th); Visa Inc. (127th)
• Wednesday: Alphabet Inc. (8th); Amazon.com, Inc. (20th); Delta Electronics, Inc. (189th); eBay Inc. (t-261st); Ford Motor Co. (33rd); Meta Platforms, Inc. (95th); Microsoft Corp. (18th); Qualcomm Inc. (4th); Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (t-263rd); Stanley Black & Decker, Inc. (t-285th); United Microelectronics Corp. (153rd)
• Thursday: Apple Inc. (6th); BASF SE (110th); Baxter International Inc. (206th); BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. (14th); Bristol Myers Squibb Co. (t-295th); Caterpillar Inc. (97th); Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (t-161st); InterDigital Inc. (91st); Kyocera Corp. (57th); Mastercard Inc. (t-178th); MediaTek Inc. (121st); Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (t-172nd); Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (1st); Stryker Corp. (75th); TCL Corp. (t-30th); Textron Inc. (t-200th); Tokyo Electron Ltd. (90th); Xerox Holdings Corp. (t-196th)
• Friday: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (t-217th); Exxon Mobil Corp. (t-233rd); Magna International Inc. (t-139th); Seiko Epson Corp. (38th)