Posts Tagged: "Apple"

Last week, oral hearings concluded at the UK Court of Appeal in the ongoing patent licensing dispute between wireless communication developer Optis and consumer device giant Apple over 4G standard essential patents (SEPs) owned by Optis and practiced by Apple devices. While a ruling is not expected for another month or so, several signs point to the Court of Appeal adjusting the May 2023 ruling by Mr Justice Marcus Smith at the High Court of England and Wales in a way that increases the damages for patent infringement that are ultimately awarded to Optis.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today in a precedential decision upheld a mixed Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) ruling that found some claims of Gesture Technology’s patent on camera sensing technology for handheld gaming and other devices to be unpatentable, but others not proven unpatentable. The inter partes review (IPR) was brought by Apple, Inc., which appealed the Board’s partial finding of unpatentability.

Consumer device giant Apple has earned trillions of dollars and cornered near monopoly levels of market share by implementing a corporate strategy focused on gaming proceedings in the federal judiciary and administrative agencies with the intent to devalue patent rights. That is the major takeaway from a recently launched campaign raising awareness into the alleged growing chokehold that Apple has gained over the global innovation industry over the past two decades, and the resulting stagnation in the cellular mobile communications ecosystem.

Professional trumpet player Charles Bertini has for now lost his latest bid to cancel trademark rights owned by Apple, Inc. covering the use of the company’s name in connection with entertainment services. Bertini filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of California in June 2024. It was the latest effort in his nearly decade-long battle to obtain a federal trademark registration for APPLE JAZZ, a mark Bertini has used to market live entertainment since 1985.

On August 30, SoftView LLC filed a petition for en banc rehearing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), arguing that the court’s recent decision incorrectly applied the doctrine of collateral estoppel/issue preclusion to a series of amended claims. In the original ruling, which was covered in a separate article, the CAFC held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) properly applied the estoppel provision of 37 CFR § 42.73(d)(3)(i) in invalidating SoftView’s amended claims submitted in inter partes reexaminations based on a prior inter partes review (IPR) decision.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential decision today upheld two district court judgments for Apple, Inc. that found Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) had 1) abandoned its doctrine-of-equivalents theory (“WARF I”) and 2) that a second suit claiming infringement of the same patent via next-generation Apple products was barred by the previous decision (WARF II).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday denied Apple, Inc.’s petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to transfer a patent infringement case brought by Resonant Systems, Inc. out of Judge Alan Albright’s Western Texas court to the Northern District of California.

On June 7, professional trumpet player Charles Bertini filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California seeking the cancellation of trademark rights owned by consumer tech giant Apple covering the use of the company’s name in connection with entertainment services. Bertini’s lawsuit is the latest effort in his nearly decade-long battle to obtain a federal trademark registration for APPLE JAZZ, a mark which Bertini has used to market live entertainment since 1985.

Late last year, , the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) announced that it would issue a limited exclusion order (LEO) and cease and desist order (CDO) against Apple, Inc. prohibiting Apple from importing and selling its Apple Watch (Series 6 and 7) products in the United States. The case was Certain Light-Based Physiological Measurement Devices and Components Thereof, Investigation No. 337-TA-1276 (“Light-Based Physiological Measurement Devices”), a “Section 337” patent infringement investigation before the ITC that was initiated by Masimo Corporation. Adding insult to injury, the ITC refused to stay these remedial orders pending appeal, putting at immediate risk continued sales of the Apple Watch in the United States. These decisions sent shock waves across both the tech industry and the legal community.

A number of individual consumers have filed suit against Apple, Inc. in California and New Jersey courts, piggybacking on the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) March 21 complaint accusing Apple of “broad-based, exclusionary conduct” amounting to monopolization of the smartphone market. The DOJ’s sweeping complaint included a number of U.S. states as plaintiffs and charged Apple with “thwart[ing] innovation” and throttle[ing] competitive alternatives via its practices around the iPhone platform.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) on Wednesday, March 20, denied APPLE JAZZ mark owner Charles Bertini’s petition to cancel Apple, Inc.’s mark APPLE for entertainment services. While the Board found that Bertini had “proven and maintained his entitlement to a statutory cause of action,” it ultimately held that he had failed to make a prima facie showing of Apple’s abandonment of the APPLE mark for those services.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied Apple’s petition for a writ of mandamus asking the court to compel Judge Alan Albright of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to transfer its case to the Northern District of California. Carbyne Biometrics sued Apple for infringement of six patents via Apple’s “Secure Enclave” and Apple Cash platform features. Apple moved for transfer in July 2023, the motion was briefed in November 2023 and the district court denied the motion in December 2023 and said it would soon issue a decision. Apple filed the petition for writ of mandamus when no decision had issued by January 31, 2024 asking the CAFC to either stay the proceedings until a decision had issued or to compel transfer.

As of today, the world’s major platforms—Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft and ByteDance—must be in full compliance with the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), an EU regulation intended to level the playing field in the digital marketplace. Signed into law in September 2022, the DMA imposed a complex regulatory framework upon the major Internet services platforms that are deemed to be “gatekeepers” (i.e. have a market capitalization of at least €75 billion [$83 billion USD]) due to their dominant market position. These gatekeepers each market at least one “core platform service” (CPS) that connects large numbers of users and business interests.

On March 4, the European Commission announced that it had levied a fine of more than €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion USD) against American consumer tech giant Apple over app restrictions employed by Apple’s App Store. The massive fine, which the Commission increased to ensure it was sufficiently deterrent to Apple’s anti-competitive practices, is the latest in a series of legal actions within the European Union (EU) to target dominant Internet platforms under competition law.

On February 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list that denied petitions for writ of certiorari filed in at least five intellectual property cases. While none of these cases induced large numbers of amici to ask the Court to grant cert, they do represent several current issues in IP law that remain unaddressed. From the use of joinder to evade time-bar limits in patent validity proceedings to the service of process required for a grant of preliminary injunction, the Court’s cert denials leave several open questions with which the patent and trademark community will likely grapple.