In a closely watched case about damages and the statute of limitations under the Copyright Act, the U.S. Supreme Court held yesterday in a 6-3 decision that, so long as claims are timely, the “Copyright Act contains no...more
5/13/2024
/ 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 Ninth Circuit has granted a rehearing en banc in Martinez v. ZoomInfo Tech., Inc. concerning the appealability of denial of anti-SLAPP motions under the collateral order doctrine.
Historically, the Ninth Circuit has...more
On November 29, 2023, a Ninth Circuit panel affirmed the lower court’s decision in Briskin v. Shopify, limiting the court’s jurisdictional reach against e-commerce platforms alleged to have violated privacy and unfair...more
The United States Supreme Court recently granted a petition for certiorari to review a Ninth Circuit decision and resolve the issue of whether, when parties enter into an arbitration agreement with a delegation clause, the...more
11/14/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Arbitrators ,
Blockchain ,
Certiorari ,
Class Action ,
Coinbase ,
Cryptocurrency ,
Delegation Clauses ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
SCOTUS
Over the past year, groups of plaintiffs filed multiple copyright infringement claims against companies behind generative artificial intelligence software. These lawsuits allege that training AI models involves mass-scale...more
On October 10, 2023, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed CA Senate Bill 365 (SB 365), set to go into effect in 2024. This bill gives state court judges the discretion to move forward with litigation in trial court while an...more
10/18/2023
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
California ,
Coinbase Inc v Bielski ,
Governor Newsom ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Motion to Compel ,
New Legislation ,
SCOTUS ,
State and Local Government ,
Stays
In Spireon, Inc. v. Flex Ltd., No. 2022-1578 (Fed. Cir. June 26, 2023), the Federal Circuit took a surprising turn in which it held that it is the trademark owner’s burden to prove that identical third-party marks put forth...more
The Supreme Court’s June 29, 2023, decision in Abitron Austria GMBH v. Hetronic Int’l, Inc., No. 21-1043, ended decades of circuit splits on the standard for determining the extraterritorial reach of the Lanham Act (see our...more
7/14/2023
/ Abitron Austria GmbH v Hetronic International Inc ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Foreign Jurisdictions ,
Foreign Sales ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
International Trademark Protection ,
Lanham Act ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Use in Commerce
On June 23, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court published its highly anticipated ruling in Coinbase v. Bielski, deciding in favor of Coinbase. In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court held that litigation...more
On June 8, 2023, the United States Supreme Court published its long-awaited decision in Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC—a trademark dispute between whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s and VIP Products, the...more
The United States Supreme Court recently granted a petition for certiorari filed by cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, which asks the Court to resolve a deep circuit split on whether a lawsuit should be automatically stayed...more
Influencers and their large and impressionable followings have become a valuable marketing tool for brands big and small. However, brands and influencers alike should proceed with caution as regulators continue to scrutinize...more
12/20/2022
/ Advertising ,
Aiding and Abetting ,
Disclosure ,
Influencers ,
Investment ,
Investors ,
Marketing ,
Pump and Dump ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Fraud ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Regulation ,
Securities Violations ,
Social Media
Circuit courts have struggled for decades to adopt a uniform approach for when to apply the Lanham Act extraterritorially. That struggle may end soon. In the Abitron Austria case, the Supreme Court is set to clarify the scope...more
The Metaverse is the newest way in which brands are thinking about engaging with existing and new customers. Wendy’s, for example, launched “Wendyverse” in Meta’s Horizon Worlds where users can engage virtually with the...more
5/12/2022
/ Advertising ,
Consumer Litigation ,
Disclosure ,
False Advertising ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Heightened Scrutiny ,
Influencers ,
Metaverse ,
Regulatory Standards ,
Risk Factors ,
Social Media
In an interesting twist, the Ninth Circuit granted summary judgment to a defendant in a trademark infringement case in Lodestar v. Bacardi on April 21, 2022. Given the Ninth Circuit’s common refrain that “summary judgment is...more
Songs often share components that sound similar to one another, which frequently raises the question of whether copyright infringement has occurred. On March 10, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held—in a...more
On February 24, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in In Re: Elster, overturned the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) refusal to grant a trademark registration on the phrase “TRUMP TOO SMALL” for...more
It’s not uncommon for individuals or small businesses to try to save money by filing copyright applications themselves. It’s also not uncommon for some of these registrations to include factual or legal errors, jeopardizing...more
On October 13, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sent a Notice of Penalty Offenses to more than 700 businesses, including top consumer brands, retailers, e-commerce platforms and advertising agencies, regarding...more
10/22/2021
/ Advertising ,
Brand ,
Compliance ,
Disclosure ,
E-Commerce ,
Endorsements ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Guidance Update ,
IP Litigation ,
Marketing ,
Notice of Violation ,
Testimonial Statements ,
Third-Party
On June 24, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Iancu v. Brunetti, struck down the Lanham Act’s prohibition on the registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks. Justice Kagan wrote for the 6-3 majority, holding that the...more
8/25/2019
/ Constitutional Challenges ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Lanham Act ,
Matal v Tam ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination
In This Issue -
A Looming AI War: Transparency v. IP Rights -
As artificial intelligence systems become more prevalent in daily life, efforts to create a unifying set of AI principles have intensified. In the past few...more
8/21/2019
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Bayh-Dole Act ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) ,
Federal Funding ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Iancu v. Brunetti ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Lanham Act ,
Litigation Fees & Costs ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Reform ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
Scandalous/Immoral Marks ,
Trademarks
A petition for writ of certiorari pending before the U.S. Supreme Court asks the Court to decide whether a plaintiff must prove willful infringement to obtain an award of a trademark infringer’s profits for a violation of 15...more
5/16/2019
/ Appeals ,
Calculation of Damages ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Damages ,
Fashion Design ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Profits ,
Remand ,
Romag Fasteners v Fossil ,
SCOTUS ,
Split of Authority ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Willful Infringement
Avoiding the Top 5 Potholes for Autonomous Transportation Startups -
Autonomous transportation technology was widespread at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show. Advances in object identification, mapping, machine learning,...more
5/10/2019
/ Automotive Industry ,
CARU ,
Confidential Information ,
Connected Cars ,
COPPA ,
Copyright ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Driverless Cars ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Manufacturers ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Popular ,
Proposed Amendments ,
Startups ,
Technology Sector ,
Trade Secrets ,
Trademarks ,
UK ,
USPTO
The Central District Court of California has held that the First and Eighth Amendments protect the trademark-registered emblems of the Mongol Nation motorcycle club from forfeiture. ...more
In a unanimous decision this month, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a copyright claimant cannot sue for infringement until the U.S. Copyright Office has granted or rejected the application to register the copyright. In...more
3/22/2019
/ Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Exhaustion ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Copyright Registration ,
Damages ,
Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp v Wall-Street.com LLC ,
SCOTUS ,
Solicitor General ,
Split of Authority ,
The Copyright Act ,
Uniformity