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The Recorder
07-24-2008
The dry, technical world of patent law apparently has a seamy underbelly. And it was all hanging out July 22 when MultiMetrixs' patent infringement suit against Applied Materials was irrevocably besmirched by documents supposedly signed by a dead man and a witness who'd sold freon to meth dealers.
Daily Business Review
07-23-2008
After a false start, a settlement was reached on July 22 in the $10 billion trade secrets dispute in Florida between Motorola and a defunct Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company. The confidential agreement was reached hours after an earlier hearing to discuss a settlement was canceled because both sides hadn't come to terms, despite telling the judge they had.
The Recorder
07-22-2008
Companies may be seeing red ink as the economy slumps downward in early 2008, but 2007 was all green as far as trademarks were concerned. It was the busiest year ever for trademarks at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, with new applications at a record high, and environmentally conscious "green" branding leading the surge.
The Recorder
07-21-2008
An intense patent fight with rival Synopsys cost Magma Design Automation $12.5 million to settle last year. But an explosive declaration in the case that caused Magma's stock price to plunge will cost the company even more. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer gave preliminary approval last week for Magma to pay $13.5 million to settle a securities class action lawsuit over a 40 percent stock drop that followed Magma's chief scientist's admission that he developed the disputed patents as a Synopsys employee.
The Associated Press
07-18-2008
Mattel Inc. won a major victory on July 17 in its copyright infringement lawsuit against the maker of the rival Bratz dolls. A jury ruled that a designer conceived the doll characters while working for Mattel, the world's largest toymaker. The ruling could potentially mean millions of dollars for Mattel when the jury considers possible damages during a separate proceeding.
The American Lawyer
07-16-2008
After 16 years in litigation, neither plaintiffs nor defendants appear to be tiring of the federal trademark dispute between the Washington Redskins and Native Americans over the team's name. On July 11, Quinn Emanuel's Robert Raskopf, who has seen the case through several court rulings and an ownership change, won the latest round for the Redskins when a federal district court judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the youngest of the Native American challengers waited too long -- nearly eight years -- after turning 18 to file the complaint.
Legal Times
07-07-2008
The Recording Industry Association of America almost certainly did not get all that it wanted when the House of Representatives passed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act. What remains to be seen is whether the RIAA and other proponents of the legislation will get what they claim to need, or anything at all. According to the House Judiciary Committee report, the purpose of the Pro IP Act is "to improve intellectual property enforcement in the United States and abroad." To achieve that, the bill would make multiple changes, mainly to copyright and trademark law.
The Legal Intelligencer
06-26-2008
Earlier this month, the Associated Press filed seven Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown requests against the "Drudge Retort." The "Drudge Retort" (not to be confused with the "Drudge Report") is a social news sharing site with about 8,500 users. These users can contribute their own blog entries and link to news articles on the Web. In its takedown requests, the AP claims that certain posts containing excerpts of AP stories and links to those stories violate its copyrights.
6th Cir.
03-25-2008
Despite objective reasonableness of copyright infringement plaintiff's novel royalty-receipt theory of recovery, plaintiff's continued, vigorous pursuit of discernibly doomed claim warranted award of attorney fees and costs in favor of defendant.
3rd Cir.
12-24-2007
District court did not clearly err in rejecting manufacturer's request for preliminary injunction against alleged trade dress infringement on ground that store-brand packaging was not confusingly similar, especially where packaging prominently displayed store brands' well-known marks; as to certain other store-brand packaging, however, district court gave undue weight to fact that products were store brands, effectively holding store-brand producer to lower standard of infringing behavior.
Fed. Cir.
12-21-2007
The Federal Circuit vacated and remanded a limited exclusion order of the International Trade Commission based on a finding that the appellant infringed four method claims of patents owned by the intervenor, Flexsys America, by producing in China and selling for importation to the United States a rubber anti-degradant. The court ruled that the commission's determination of infringement was based on an erroneous construction of the term "controlled amount" in the claims at issue.
