Steve Brachmann

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list showing that the nation’s highest court had denied a series of petitions for writ of certiorari filed by major pharmaceutical developers to challenge the Medicare negotiation program established by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Supreme Court also denied cert to an appeal of Section 101 patent-eligibility issues from a Federal Circuit ruling involving mobile banking technology, as well as a pro se cert appealing copyright and intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) against Disney.

On May 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential ruling in mCom IP, LLC v. City National Bank of Florida affirming the Southern District of Florida’s dismissal of patent owner mCom IP’s complaint after finding the asserted patent claims obvious on the same grounds as related patent claims invalidated at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). However, the Federal Circuit found that the district court improperly concluded that the case was exceptional, leading the appellate court to reverse the attorney’s fee award and attorney sanctions after finding the plaintiff did not develop evidence of frivolous litigation conduct.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act moves one step closer toward enactment; the Federal Circuit reverses attorney’s fees award and attorney sanctions in a patent case over e-banking technology; the Court of Justice for the European Union finds that a publisher’s right to fair compensation established by EU member states is permissible if qualifying as consideration for the right to republish; Nokia earns a stay of UK court rulings in its RAND licensing battle over video codec patents with Acer and Asus; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office places informative designations on a trio of Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions applying agency precedent on inconsistent claim construction positions; Cisco announces 4,000 layoffs on the same day that it reported a 12% year-over-year jump in quarterly revenues; top Congressional Democrats publicly opposed President Trump’s ouster of the National Science Board membership; and the European General Court tells the European Union Intellectual Property Office that it did not sufficiently analyze links between an ammunition trademark and a famous French comic serial.

Yesterday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a trademark alert highlighting actions that the agency has taken recently to remove fraudulent and otherwise invalid marks from the federal trademark register. In 11 administrative orders issued by the USPTO since the beginning of last October, the agency has either invalidated or is targeting for invalidation around 10,500 trademark applications and registrations for reasons including forged attorney signatures and inventing non-existent trademark registration requirements and fees.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: a Ninth Circuit majority affirms a summary judgment dismissing false representation claims over Circuit Judge Bumatay’s dissent; a joint WIPO-IRENA report advances several recommendations to promote the electrification of the EU’s heavy-duty road transport sector; China’s Tencent removed more than 250,000 AI songs from its streams during 2025 for corporate policy violations; the Eleventh Circuit reverses a summary judgment ruling that had dismissed infringement claims brought by a licensee of photographs captured by Annie Liebovitz; and more.