Posts Tagged: "IP News"

This week in Other Barks & Bites: a study from Bertelsmann Stiftung shows that China has made great strides in obtaining patents for important tech sectors; the Federal Circuit rules that attorney’s fees awards under Section 285 are not available for PTAB trials; the Senate IP Subcommittee holds a two-part DMCA modernization hearing exploring issues in current online copyright law; AI firm ZoomInfo is successful in the first tech IPO since the COVID-19 pandemic began; Amazon partners with Slack to develop enterprise collaboration solutions to compete with Microsoft Teams; the Copyright Office announces a study into the degree to which state entities covered by sovereign immunity have infringed copyright; and the FDA solicits public input on the types of patent information that should be listed in the Orange Book.

This week in Washington IP events, the Senate IP Subcommittee convenes a hearing to look at recent recommendations made by the U.S. Copyright Office regarding the systems of receiving copyright claim notices and taking down infringing content from online platforms under provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While Congress remains mostly quiet, various think tanks will host online video webinars including the Center for Strategic & International Studies, which will explore a fictional depiction of the impact of the robotic revolution as well as innovative responses to the COVID-19 pandemic being developed by the retail and apparel industry.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: China’s top prosecution agency reports that cases involving IP rights violations have increased by 5,660% over the last 20 years; the USPTO extends additional patent- and trademark-related relief during the coronavirus pandemic; the Federal Circuit affirms dismissal of APA claims against the USPTO; UKIPO reports 8% decrease in patent applications during 2019; top executives from global pharmaceutical firms express concerns over voluntary COVID-19 patent pool launched by WHO; the TTAB finds that a registered geographic certification mark for Michigan apples precludes a hard cider trademark; and General Electric sells off its lighting division to Savant Systems.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Copyright Office issues its report on the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA codified in Section 512 of U.S. copyright law; the Federal Circuit issues decisions reversing a lower court on patent invalidity for lack of enablement and denying review of PTAB institution decisions; the Eleventh Circuit revives copyright and trade secret claims filed by Compulife; online sales boost during COVID-19 pandemic leads to strong quarterly earnings report for Alibaba; Apple and Cisco each win multi-million attorney’s fees awards against Straight Path IP Group; China’s IP office reports a rebound in patent application filings since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic; and Reps. Veasey and Wright introduce a bill to prevent airport funds from being spent on IP-infringing manufacturers.

This week in Washington IP news, both houses of Congress remain fairly quiet except for an executive session by the Senate Commerce Committee to discuss a few bills related to advanced manufacturing and cybersecurity. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation hosts a pair of webinars Wednesday and Thursday exploring the United States’ potential implementation of a digital payment platform as well as ways the nation can improve the commercialization pipeline for climate change technologies. Elsewhere, New America focuses on the use of open source systems by government institutions through and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Center for Strategic & International Studies discusses the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s recent U.S. cybersecurity report.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Supreme Court finds that Lucky Brand Dungarees isn’t precluded from asserting new defenses under federal preclusion principles; the Federal Circuit issues decisions extending Arthrex to inter partes reexaminations and affirming a willful infringement verdict, despite a lack of Article III standing by the plaintiff when the suit was filed; the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal says plants and animals derived from essentially biological processes are not patentable; USPTO publishes the requirements for participants in its COVID-19 priority examination pilot; Taiwan Semiconductor announces a $12 billion facility to be built in Arizona; the Second Circuit clarifies instances when individuals unnamed in group registrations can pursue infringement claims on individual works within the group; and the Eleventh Circuit reverses a lower court’s trademark ruling on lack of distinctiveness.

When did it become necessary to triangulate the news in order to figure out what was really happening in the world? Many media outlets have significantly slowed down with respect to reporting on the news and are increasingly ramping up on opinion and conjecture in its place. Why that happened isn’t terribly difficult to understand, and it is likely going to only get worse. Once upon a time there were few sources of information, with only several TV channels and a small handful of national newspapers were competing for eyeballs. The rise of the 24/7 news cycle brought on by a proliferation of cable news stations with timeslots to fill changed the dynamic. The widespread adoption of Internet technologies and the World Wide Web also made it possible for people to get news throughout the day on their own terms, again making it less necessary for those seeking news and information to go to one of the chosen few industry leading sources. Today, many get news from myriad online sources, social media platforms, YouTube videos and more. There is so much information available, it is almost easy to mistake the information that is available as news.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Supreme Court finds that Georgia’s annotated state code is ineligible for copyright protection; the Federal Circuit issues decisions reversing the PTAB on nonobviousness and Northern California on Section 101 validity; the USPTO extends filing deadlines to June 1; a complex patent trial between Cisco and Centripetal Networks will begin on May 6; the TTAB affirms refusal to register a trademark after the applicant refuses to disclaim the merely descriptive term “LABS”; the Copyright Office begins a pilot program for electronic recordation; InterDigital signs a global 5G patent license with Huawei; and Amazon reports an increase in net sales for the first quarter of 2020.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Supreme Court hands out a pair of IP decisions, holding that willfulness is not required for profits awards in all trademark cases and that institution decisions at the PTAB are not reviewable despite violations of the statutory one-year time bar; the CJEU clarifies EU trademark law regarding the registration of trademarks for products that are solely decorative; INTA asks the full Ninth Circuit to rehear VIP Products v. Jack Daniels Properties, Inc.; the Copyright Office issues rulemaking notices related to the agency’s implementation of mechanical licensing collective activities and other aspects of the Music Modernization Act; global stocks tumble after Gilead halts a clinical trial examining the use of remdesivir to treat coronavirus patients; the USITC decides in favor of Rovi in a Section 337 investigation of Comcast; and the USPTO reports a reduction in Alice rejections owing to the agency’s implementation of revised subject matter eligibility guidelines in 2019.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: a new report shows that Asian countries are responsible for 65% of all patent filings in the 5G sector; the copyright infringement case against Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” is appealed to the Ninth Circuit; the Federal Circuit issues precedential decisions invalidating Ericsson patent claims under Section 101 and affirming a denial of attorney’s fee award on a voluntary dismissal; Congressional leadership from IP subcommittees send a letter to USPTO Director Iancu seeking information on agency operations during the COVID-19 pandemic; the Southern District of New York finds that Mashable isn’t liable for copyright infringement after using a picture from a photographer’s public Instagram feed; and Gilead stock surges after a positive clinical trial involving the use of its antiviral agent remdesivir to treat COVID-19 patients.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the U.S. Supreme Court denies yet another petition  asking the court to clarify patent-eligibility under Section 101; the Federal Circuit vacates various rulings due to erroneous lower court findings on claim construction, Section 102 on-sale bar and distinctiveness of multi-color trademark; the U.S. Copyright Office relaxes regulations on electronic submissions to facilitate public access to agency services; France’s competition regulator demands that Google pays copyright fees for online news snippets; the Consumer Price Index sees its largest one-month drop in more than five years; Roku fails to extend trial date in streaming media patent case in the Western District of Texas; and WIPO reports that China’s 2019 Patent Cooperation Treaty filings surpassed similar findings from the United States.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: China’s copyright office announces a 21% increase in copyright registrations between 2018 and 2019; Costa Rica asks WHO to build a voluntary patent pool for COVID-19 technologies, South Korea’s patent office builds a COVID-19 tech tracker; Amazon faces trademark infringement claims from NFL MVP Lamar Jackson and copyright infringement claims from Williams-Sonoma; Congress moves to pass a massive economic stimulus bill in response to COVID-19; dozens of PTAB cases face appeal after the Federal Circuit denies rehearing in Arthrex; and the Supreme Court finds that state sovereignty prevents individuals from filing copyright claims against states in Allen v. Cooper decision.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO closes to the public amid the coronavirus pandemic while waiving various patent and trademark applicant requirements during “extraordinary situation;” former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski pleads guilty to trade secret theft; Israel approves a generic version of a viral treatment that could help coronavirus patients despite AbbVie’s patents; the Federal Circuit strikes down Facebook’s attempt to use joinder to increase the number of patent claims challenged in an IPR; the Ninth Circuit affirms a lower court ruling that nixes copyright infringement claims against Disney over the 2015 film “Inside Out;” the CNIPA issues new IP work system guidelines for Chinese state-owned entities; YouTube and CNN will reportedly cut streaming video quality in response to massive growth in European bandwidth usage; the ITC opens a Section 337 investigation into touchscreen devices made by Apple, Samsung and LG Electronics; and Judge Snyder awards JMOL to Katy Perry nixing copyright damages in “Dark Horse” case.

This week in Washington, DC, the House of Representatives kicks off the week’s schedule for technology and innovation hearings with the House Communications Subcommittee marking up bills related to wireless spectrum auctions on Tuesday morning. Spectrum auctions will be discussed in both houses of Congress during hearings to examine the 2021 budget request for the Federal Communications Commission. On Tuesday, the Senate IP Subcommittee will hold a hearing to focus on how other countries counteract digital piracy. The week closes with a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing that will explore biotechnology regulatory frameworks that can impact gene editing and other agricultural technologies.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Daren Tang of IPOS is elected next Director of WIPO; the CNIPA waives patent annuity late fees and major American tech firms ask employees to work from home in response to the spread of coronavirus; the Library of Congress asks for public input on the qualities and priorities of the next Register of Copyrights; the Federal Circuit affirms rulings involving inequitable conduct in filing patent applications and the ITC’s cease-and-desist order against Comcast X1 set-top box sales; former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following trade secret verdict; HP rejects Xerox’s $35 billion takeover bid; and Charter Communications seeks to overturn $1 billion copyright verdict by alleging improper copyright registrations.