Publications

A dispute has emerged between the NFL, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Dimopoulos Law Firm over the NFL and the Raiders threatening to sue the firm for trademark infringement. The law firm claims it has been using a black and silver color scheme to promote its services since its inception in 2012. However, after hiring three professional athletes, including Maxx Crosby of the Las Vegas Raiders, to appear in a new advertisement, the NFL sent a cease-and-desist letter to Dimopoulos accusing the firm of unauthorized use of the Raiders’ marks. The complaint states that the advertisement did not feature any logos or trademarks of the NFL, the Raiders, or any other sports teams, and the disclaimer on the Dimopoulos Law Firm website and YouTube page make it clear that the firm is not affiliated with the NFL. Below we analyze the grounds of the dispute and the legal implications of the case.

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On March 16th, the US Copyright Office issued a policy statement regarding the registration of works that contain material generated by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. This statement clarifies the Copyright Office’s practices for examining and registering works that contain such material, as generative AI technologies are capable of producing various forms of expressive material, such as text and images.

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) has reduced the patent fees for small businesses and certain other applicants. This fee reduction is part of an effort to reduce financial burdens and resulting barriers that discourage or prevent these entities from participating in the patent system. Most of these fee reductions have an effective date of March 22, 2023, with the remaining ones effective as of April 1, 2023.

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The Ninth Circuit recently addressed the issue of whether parties can contractually agree to shorten the statute of limitations period for bringing a copyright infringement claim. In an unpublished opinion in the case, Evox Productions, LLC v. Chrome Data Solutions, LP (filed Feb. 10, 2023), the Ninth Circuit held that the trial court had properly enforced contractual provisions to find that the Plaintiff’s copyright infringement claims were barred by the agreed-to shortened, statute of limitations period.

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I recently wrote about the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Moderna against Pfizer/BioNTech over the COVID-19 vaccine. In its complaint filed in federal district court in Boston last August, Moderna alleged that Pfizer/BioNTech infringed three of Moderna’s patents in developing the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna seeks damages only for the time period after March 8, 2022, when Moderna announced that it would begin to enforce its patents after holding off doing so for 15 months while the pandemic was raging. The amount of money at stake is high. Pfizer/BioNTech sold over $26.4 billion of the vaccine in the first nine months of 2022; Moderna sold over $13.5 billion of its vaccine during the same time.

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In Bell Semiconductor, LLC v. Omnivision Technologies, Inc., 8-22-cv-01979 (CDCA Mar. 1, 2023)( John A. Kronstadt), the Court granted the Defendant’s motion to dismiss Plaintiff’s indirect patent infringement claims for failure to sufficiently allege Defendant “made” the accused product. Plaintiff had argued that using the patented methods in the design process, which guides the subsequent manufacturing process, is sufficient to state a claim. However, the Court held the Plaintiff provides no authority supporting the contention that the use of a method to design a product is the same as the use of a method to manufacture the product, as contemplated by the statute. 

The Court found Plaintiff’s allegations sufficient to allege direct infringement of a method claim because they are based on the theory that Defendant infringes the method when using the Accused Processes to design the exemplary devices and not that the devices themselves later infringe the method claim. However, in contrast, the Court also found the allegations do not meet the standard for pleading indirect infringement.

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