Other Barks & Bites for Friday, June 5: Trump Auto Industry Comments Bolster REPAIR Act; House IP Subcommittee Debates Generics Legislation Following Hikma; and X Seeks Modification of FTC Order on Account Security

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This Week in Other Barks & Bites: the Seventh Circuit remands a Schedule A trademark case to determine whether the Hague Convention’s terms on proper service apply to particular Chinese defendants; President Donald Trump criticizes the automotive industry’s alleged efforts to impede consumer choice on auto repairs; the Eleventh Circuit finds no valid copyright termination notice sent in a case involving members of 2 Live Crew, including one whose termination rights were still held in a bankruptcy estate; the House IP Subcommittee debates legislation that would impact pharmaceutical patents in favor of improved generic sales in the minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court issues its landmark Hikma v. Amarin ruling; the U.S. Copyright Office redesignates both the mechanical licensing collective and the digital licensee coordinator under the Music Modernization Act; and X Corp. files a petition with the Federal Trade Commission seeking to set aside a settlement order preventing the sale of personal information for targeted ads, citing the need to promote American leadership in AI.

Bites

House IP Subcommittee Holds Hearing on Generics Legislation as Hikma Ruling Announced – On Thursday, June 4, the U.S. House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet held a hearing on balancing medical innovation and consumer access to generic drugs, featuring testimony from several panel witnesses clarifying the impacts of bills currently proposed in Congress that would improve market access for generic drugmakers without ensuring that Americans would actually pay less for their prescription drugs. The hearing began about the same time that the U.S. Supreme Court handed out a landmark ruling in Hikma v. Amarin, which clarifies the standard for induced infringement liability for generic drugmakers selling off-brand pharmaceuticals with skinny labels carving out patented indications of the generic drug, with the Court finding that patent owner Amarin did not plausibly allege induced infringement and rejecting in a footnote the Federal Circuit’s trend of analyzing relevant statements like Hikma’s public statements on generic efficacy in light of the reasonable understanding of physicians.

President Trump Engages With Auto Industry As REPAIR Act Gains Steam – On Thursday, June 4, President Donald Trump made remarks during a White House conference with energy industry leaders indicating that the President had engaged with executives from major automotive industry companies and trade organizations to discuss issues surrounding consumer rights to repair their vehicles, with policy advocates like Car Repair Choice noting that H.R. 1566, the Right to Equitable and Professional Auto Industry Repair (REPAIR) Act, exists as the only currently viable legislative solution to federally codify the right to repair. Such federal codification would avoid issues of federal preemption that copyright law experts have pointed out in the currently developing right to repair framework being advanced at the state legislation level.

X Corp Cites American Leadership in AI as Reason to Modify FTC Settlement on Account Security – On Wednesday, June 3, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it would be seeking public comments on a petition from social media company X Corp. seeking to set aside or modify a 2022 FTC settlement order imposing fines on X’s predecessor Twitter for violating previous FTC orders explicitly preventing the company from collecting user personal information based on claims of account security but then selling that data for targeted ads. X Corp.’s petition argues that the settlement order should be modified or set aside by the end of 2026 for several reasons, including that setting aside the order is critical to advancing American leadership in artificial intelligence.

Eleventh Circuit Finds 2 Live Crew Termination Ineffective Due to Rights Held by Bankruptcy Estate – On Tuesday, June 2, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a ruling in Lil’ Joe Records, Inc. v. Ross determining as a matter of first impression that termination notices sent by the American hip hop group 2 Live Crew to reclaim copyright by three of four members of the group, a majority of the authors that would typically be able to file a valid copyright termination notice pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 203. However, because one of those three members filed for bankruptcy proceedings that did not schedule, administer or formally abandon that member’s termination rights, those rights remained the property of the bankruptcy estate at the time that the termination notice was exercised, rendering that member’s exercise of termination rights invalid and destroying the majority of authors required for a Section 203 notice to take effect.

EUIPO Study on Fragmented Copyright-Protection Info Lays Foundation for CopyrightView – On Monday, June 1, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) issued a study that maps existing copyright databases and metadata standards across the European Union, finding that such information related to copyrighted works is highly fragmented across both public and private databases, and that while international identifiers and metadata standards exist, their ability to provide interoperability is hampered by uneven adoption across industry sectors and jurisdictions. The EUIPO study attempts to lay the groundwork for CopyrightView, a copyright transparency initiative seeking to improve data and infrastructures for better access to copyright information across the EU.

Seventh Circuit Remands Schedule A Trademark Case Over Hague Convention Question – On Friday, May 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a decision in Kangol LLC v. Hangzhou Chuanyue Silk Import & Export Co., Ltd. reversing a ruling by the Northern District of Illinois which had denied a motion to vacate a default judgment for lack of proper service by a Chinese defendant named in Kangol’s Schedule A trademark case. The appellate court disagreed with the district court’s interpretation of the Hague Convention’s terms on proper international service, finding that email service like the kind attempted by Kangol is prohibited in China under the Convention, but remanded to the district court to determine if the particular Chinese defendant in question has an address that is unknown such that the Hague Convention’s terms on proper forms of service do not apply.

Barks

Sixth Circuit Affirms Denial of Injunctive Relief Against P&G’s Spruce Weed-Killer – On Thursday, June 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit entered an unpublished decision in The Scotts Company LLC v. The Procter & Gamble Co. affirming the Southern District of Ohio’s denial of injunctive relief to Scotts after finding that the district court properly applied the relevant factors to Scotts’ trade dress infringement and dilution claims against Procter & Gamble’s Spruce weed-killer, which uses product packaging allegedly similar to Scotts’ Miracle-Gro line of weed-killer.

Copyright Office Redesignates MLC, DLC For Blanket License Administration – On Wednesday, June 3, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that the current designations for the mechanical licensing collective (MLC) administering blanket licenses under the Music Modernization Act, and the digital licensee coordinator (DLC) to represent digital music providers in blanket license administration, will continue with the next periodic review expected to begin in January 2029.

EPO Hosts Inauguration Event for New PMAC for SEP Mediation – On Tuesday, June 2, the European Patent Office (EPO) hosted an event celebrating the inauguration of the agency’s new Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC), which will serve as a venue for solving complex international technology disputes involving standard-essential patents (SEPs) encumbered by fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing obligations.

Eighth Circuit Dismisses Appeal of Contempt Sanctions in Business Database Copyright Case – On Monday, June 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued a ruling in Data Axle, Inc. v. Nolting dismissing an appeal of a civil contempt ruling imposing sanctions against Andrew Nolting after finding that Nolting continued unauthorized sales of Data Axle’s business databases after dissolving his website entity that was originally sued by Data Axle.

Moldova Becomes 40th EPO Member State – On Monday, June 1, the EPO announced that the Republic of Moldova had formally acceded to the European Patent Convention, officially becoming the 40th member state of the EPO and the 13th non-EU member state to become a part of the centralized patent examination network at the EU agency.

CAFC Will Not Sit for Oral Arguments During August 2026 – On Friday, May 29, the Federal Circuit announced that the appellate court will not sit and hear oral arguments during the month of August, posting an updated calendar online reflecting these changes as well.

This Week on Wall Street

Financial Viability Concerns Prevent SpaceX From Swift S&P 500 IPO – On Thursday, financial intelligence company S&P Global announced that it was refusing to change rules surrounding initial public offerings (IPOs) of stock for companies newly listed on the S&P 500, a move seen as a significant blow to SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to swiftly engage in an IPO that by some reports could reach a $1.75 trillion valuation, which would set a world record for IPO valuation.

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: None
• Tuesday: None
• Wednesday: Oracle Corp. (56th)
• Thursday: Adobe Inc. (112th)
• Friday: None