Posts in IP News

This week on Other Barks & Bites: Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Todd Young (R-IN) lead a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers introducing a bill to reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative; Circuit Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw pens a concurrence to the Ninth Circuit’s ruling affirming the dismissal of copyright claims against tattoo artist Kat Von D calling out fundamental flaws in the circuit’s intrinsic test for substantial similarity; and more.

In a precedential ruling authored by Judge Stoll, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) said on Thursday that International Trade Commission (ITC) decisions that contain mixed findings of violations and no violations have distinct appeal windows as to the notices of appeal for the different findings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday affirmed a decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) that refused to register trademarks relating  to New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge. The court found that the marks ALL RISE and HERE COMES THE JUDGE were already associated with Judge and that the applicant, Michael P. Chisena could not establish priority. The case was decided by Circuit Judges Lourie and Hughes, along with District Judge Beth Labson Freeman of the Northern District of California, sitting by designation.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday granted summary judgment in favor of Pinterest, Inc. in a copyright infringement suit brought by the estate of a professional photographer, finding that the social media platform is protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) safe harbor provision.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that certain claims of Viasat Inc.’s data error correction patent are unpatentable as obvious. The opinion was authored by Judge Bryson. Western Digital Technologies, Inc. filed for inter partes review (IPR) of several claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,966,347 and the PTAB held all of the challenged claims unpatentable for obviousness. The Board ultimately found that any difference between Viasat’s claims and the key prior art reference (“Diggs”) “was a ‘semantic discrepanc[y]’ rather than a difference in substance.”

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I sat down with my business and life partner, Renee Quinn. In addition to telling Renee’s story about how she found her way into the intellectual property world, and through our sometimes-comical banter, we together explore what it really takes to build, sustain, and continuously reinvent an entrepreneurial company like IPWatchdog. What emerged was a practical roadmap for entrepreneurship, invention, navigating platform risk, and focused on the necessity of constantly being ready to pivot as old business models start to show signs of age and ultimately falter. From Renee’s journey from IP outsider to patented inventor, to firsthand lessons learned navigating Amazon’s reseller ecosystem, the discussion highlights how intellectual property operates in the real world, not the classroom.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court decision finding that Technology in Ariscale, LLC’s patent for a transmission signal decoding method was ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham.

The Supreme Court rejected equitable defenses of laches in infringement suits, reasoning that by enacting a statute of limitation, Congress left no statutory “gap” for equitable judgments on timeliness. See Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014), and SCA Hygiene Prods. v. First Quality Baby Prods (2017). These precedential holdings should have also governed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decisions on prosecution laches in Hyatt v. Hirshfeld (2021) and in Hyatt v. Stewart (2025), particularly after the multiple briefings in the Hyatt case on the binding effect of such holdings. Yet, nowhere in these decisions can one find any reasons why the principles in SCA Hygiene and Petrella should be inapplicable for precluding prosecution laches.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Paramount Pictures Corporation in a copyright and contract dispute brought by the heirs of the author of the 1983 magazine article that inspired the original Top Gun film. Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay, the widow and son of Ehud Yonay, first brought claims against Paramount in 2022, alleging that the sequel Top Gun: Maverick infringed on the copyright of Ehud Yonay’s article, “Top Guns.” The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 2024 granted summary judgment for Paramount, agreeing that Maverick did not share “substantial amounts of the article’s original expression and that the depicted pilots and their experiences were factual and therefore unprotected by copyright law.

Much of the focus on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been on training data ingestion—the moment when AI “steals” from creators. But legally, that’s not where the real fight should be. Decades of legal precedent—from search engines to image?scanning to streaming media—already give us a roadmap. No new formulation of copyright law by Congress, as suggested by some academics, is necessary. By considering these seven unique aspects of GenAI systems, copyright analysis is actually easy.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is urging the White House to turn a proposal he floated into an Executive Order that would weaken the economy and cost the government tens of billions of dollars in foregone tax revenue. It’s bad policy, and even worse politically. The Trump Administration would be wise to reject it. Secretary Lutnick is convinced that the government is being short-changed when academic institutions make patentable inventions under federal grants, which are primarily licensed to entrepreneurial small companies that take great risk and expense to turn them into real-world products. The Secretary wants the government to seize 50% of the royalties that universities receive when resulting products are sold—sales that bolster our economy while promoting public well-being. 

This year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted several important patents claiming important innovations in 6G networks, generating reliable map data for autonomous vehicles and pest-resistant genetically modified crops. With a new year just days away, we hope the following list of the top 10 patents of 2025 sparks interest in the state of global innovation as we reach the final stages of the year.

While being realistic and practical in IP law is usually prudent, it’s a helpful exercise to now and then articulate one’s fantasies for a perfect world in order to gauge what topics come up most often. This year, as in years past, clarity on patent eligibility law remains high, while protections for an improvement of AI tools takes second. Some of the wishes below have little chance of coming true in 2026, but others may be granted—here is what our participants would like to see happen for IP in the new year.

On Monday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that the agency has established a Standard-Essential Patent (SEP) Working Group to develop and deliver meaningful policy solutions on SEP-related issues. The working group, which will report to USPTO Director John Squires, will play a role in advancing the Office’s engagement with patent remedies and enforcement in furtherance of the pro-innovation stance the agency has taken on SEP cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) and in U.S. district court.