The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced that it has shortened the time between the issue notification and the issue date for patents. Historically, the time between these two events averaged about three weeks....more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that a district court erred in declaring on summary judgment that an attorney had no ownership interest in a winery because the alleged agreement was made orally. The Ninth...more
2/28/2025
/ Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Breach of Duty ,
California ,
Contract Terms ,
Ethics ,
Evidence ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Ownership Interest ,
Summary Judgment
McDermott is committed to providing insightful commentary on intellectual property (IP) developments from around the world to our Japanese clients. During these sessions, a variety of speakers from McDermott’s offices in the...more
1/22/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Japan ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent Reform ,
Patent Registration ,
Patents ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Standard Essential Patents ,
Trump Administration ,
Webinars
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a $56 million trial verdict in a trademark dispute, finding that the evidence supported the jury’s conclusion that a beer company’s rebranding of one its beers infringed a...more
1/16/2025
/ Appeals ,
Damages ,
Evidence ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Laches ,
Lanham Act ,
Likelihood of Confusion ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademark Registration ,
Unfair Competition
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) withdrew its proposed rule that suggested major changes to its terminal disclaimer practice. 89 Fed. Reg. 96152 (Dec. 4, 2024)....more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) issued its final rule setting and adjusting patent fees that will take effect on January 19, 2025. 89 Fed. Reg. 91898 (Nov. 20, 2024).
The final rule sets or adjusts 433 patent fees...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced the termination of the After Final Consideration Pilot Program (AFCP) 2.0, effective December 15, 2024. Launched in 2013, AFCP 2.0 aimed to streamline the patent examination...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit clarified that a technical expert does not need to have been a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) at the time of the invention. Instead, they may rely on...more
The Trademark Trial & Appeal Board issued a precedential decision affirming a refusal to register a mark because there was no direct association between the specimen and the applied-for services. In re Gail Weiss, Serial No....more
The UK Court of Appeal found that the UK High Court of Justice applied flawed reasoning in setting a global fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) royalty rate for a patent portfolio essential to 3G, 4G and 5G...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, in a matter of first impression, a district court’s decision to apply trade secret law extraterritorially and award trade secret damages for foreign sales while also...more
On May 21, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an en banc opinion overruling the long-standing Rosen-Durling test for obviousness of design patents in favor of the analytical framework used for...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit against pharmaceutical companies accused of violating antitrust laws by using reverse payments to delay entry of a generic version of a...more
5/24/2024
/ Antitrust Division ,
Antitrust Violations ,
Appeals ,
CVS ,
Dismissals ,
FTC v Actavis ,
Generic Drugs ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-in-Suit ,
Patents ,
Pay-For-Delay ,
Pharmaceutical Industry ,
Pharmaceutical Patents ,
Reverse Payments ,
SCOTUS
On April 23, 2024, in a move that will have significant ramifications for employment contracts and intellectual property (IP) rights, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a rule banning all future noncompete agreements...more
5/17/2024
/ Disclosure ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Proprietary Information ,
Strategic Planning ,
Trade Secrets
On May 9, 2024, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s prior ruling, holding that a plaintiff with a timely infringement claim under the discovery...more
5/15/2024
/ Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Damages ,
Discovery Rule ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Music Industry ,
SCOTUS ,
Statute of Limitations ,
The Copyright Act ,
Warner Chappell Music v Nealy
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit stayed a district court’s contempt sanctions relating to an anti-suit injunction violation, finding that the adjudicated infringer had done all it could to withdraw from the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision finding trade secret misappropriation and breach of contract based on a recruiter’s improper use of confidential client information. Counsel...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) issued a notice of rulemaking announcing proposed patent fee increases beginning next year. 89 Fed. Reg. 23226 (April 3, 2024). The proposed increases are generally consistent with the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s decision to preclude a patent owner from seeking damages based on method claims infringed outside of the United States but confirmed that reasonable...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit referred an attorney for potential further disciplinary measures after the attorney cited a nonexistent case created by ChatGPT. Park v. Kim, Case No. 22-2057 (2d Cir. Jan. 30,...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board obviousness determination, explaining that inter partes review (IPR) statutory provisions that prohibit an otherwise time-barred party...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) published its final rule, creating a separate design patent bar where admitted design patent practitioners will practice in design patent proceedings only. (88 Fed. Reg. 78644 (Nov. 16,...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit revived a hotel group’s federal trade secret suit against two former employees, finding that the district court did not have enough information to conclude that the hotel group...more
The Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to reconsider the Chevron doctrine, which instructs courts to defer to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute that US Congress delegated to the...more
The Supreme Court of the United States agreed to consider whether a copyright plaintiff’s timely claim under the discovery rule is subject to retrospective relief for infringement occurring more than three years before the...more