Intellectual Property

Do defendants and the court have the right to ask who is funding a particular patent litigation? Chief Judge Connolly in Delaware says they do, and in In re Nimitz, the Federal Circuit denied a request to stop the judge’s inquiry.

The issue arose as a result of two standing orders issued by Judge Connolly. The first standing order requires non-governmental companies and corporations to disclose the name of every person all the way up the chain of ownership who has “a direct or indirect interest in the party.” 

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Google, which operates the world’s most popular search engine, recently defeated an antitrust claim brought by an online supplier of stock images in the case Dreamstime.com, LLC v. Google, LLC, decided on December 6, 2022, by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Dreamstime Opinion helps illustrate some difficulties in defining the relevant market to allege anticompetitive injury to support an antitrust claim.

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Fashion houses Fendi and Marc Jacobs have been sued for trademark infringement in the United States District Court for the Central District of California by another clothing company known as Roma Costumes, Inc. According to Roma Costumes, Fendi and Marc Jacobs infringed their trademark rights to Roma Costumes’ trademark when they collaborated to release Fendi’s “Roma” collection. According to Roma Costumes, the “reimagined logo” by Marc Jacobs is confusingly similar to Roma Costumes’ trademark.

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In Shenzhen Chengront Technology Co., Ltd v. Besign Direct et al, 1-22-cv-10281 (SDNY Dec. 9, 2022) (Jennifer L. Rochon), Judge Rochon of the Southern District of New York denied a Plaintiff’s request for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”) and cited the Plaintiff’s ten-month delay in filing suit as the primary reasoning for denying the TRO.

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A lot of people have gotten patents for things related to Christmas. Here are some of the most interesting ones I’ve found.

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The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted Jack Daniel’s petition for review in its case against the makers of “Bad Spaniels,” a dog chew toy that mimics a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey. The dog toy made by VIP Products LLC parodies Jack Daniel’s famous bottle, replacing “Old No. 7” and “Tennessee Whiskey” labeling with “Old No. 2 On Your Tennessee Carpet.”

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In patent infringement cases, venue is proper under 28 U.S.C § 1406(a) where either (1) the company accused of infringement is incorporated or (2) where the company has committed acts of infringement and has a “regular and established place of business.” Given the increase in employees working from home in recent years, the question has arisen as to whether an employee’s home office is considered a “regular and established place of business” for the purposes of patent venue. In most instances, the courts have indicated that an employee’s home office is insufficient to establish venue absent the company ratifying that home office as a “regular and established place of business.” However, the Federal Circuit’s ruling in In re Monolith Power Systems, Inc. may have reopened that question.

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The Ninth Circuit was recently called upon to decide a case of first impression for it involving the interplay between immunity granted to website providers under the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”) and potential civil liability under The Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2018 (“FOSTA”). In the case, Jane Does v. Reddit, Inc., decided October 24, 2022, the Court affirmed the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ class action complaint against Reddit for allegedly hosting child pornography in its forums after analyzing the interplay between the CDA and FOSTA.

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One of the most amazing accomplishments in the field of biotechnology has been the development and distribution of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID 19). The numbers tell the story.

The time from when the coronavirus’ RNA sequence, identified by China, was published on January 11, 2020 to the date that clinical trials in the U.S. began in March 2020 was 66 days. From the date the RNA sequence was published to the date that a vaccine was first administered to the public, on December 11, 2020, was 11 months. Within a year of the date the RNA sequence was published, both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech were providing thousands of doses of mRNA vaccines to people around the world. The mRNA vaccines were extremely effective – they provided about 94-95% protection against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. These vaccines are now available to anyone over the age of six months. In the world’s wealthiest countries, and in much of the rest of the world, vaccine availability is no longer a factor getting vaccinated.

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In SSMiller IP LLC v. Sugar Beets LLC, 2-22-cv-02576 (CDCA Oct. 21, 2022)District Judge George H. Wu of the Central District of California found the parties did not sufficiently meet and confer as required by the Local Rules before Plaintiff filed its motion to dismiss Defendant’s noninfringement and invalidity counterclaims. The Court, in its discretion, still considered the motion to dismiss but ultimately summarily denied plaintiff’s motion.

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