http://www.law.com Receive daily IP news from Law.com and ALM Media's award - winning legal publications. Law.com Practice Center subscription required. en-us 05/09/2008 Copyright 2005 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.law.com/service/terms_conditions.shtml http://www.law.com/img/newswire/iplawpc_rss.gif http://www.law.com/jsp/pc/iplaw.jsp Spanx, the Atlanta-based creator of slimming "body shapers," has slapped Sexy Panties and Naughty Knickers with a suit for trademark infringement, claiming, in part, that the British lingerie purveyor's SPANK abbreviation is so visually and phonetically similar to Spanx that it confuses consumers. Wrote an attorney for Spanx in a letter attached as an exhibit, "The fact that your client chose a name that is too long to put on the product does not mean that Spanx has to tolerate the infringing abbreviation." http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=1202421204937&rss=null A federal judge has certified a class action antitrust suit that accuses GlaxoSmithKline of using monopolistic tactics to boost its profits from Wellbutrin, a popular antidepressant, by delaying a generic version of the drug from coming to market. The suit was brought by direct purchasers who claim that GSK concocted a plan to keep Wellbutrin prices high by making fraudulent assertions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and by engaging in "sham" patent litigation against generic drug manufacturers. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=1202421226631&rss=null Lawyers at Kilpatrick Stockton scored a $304 million victory for shoe company Adidas AG late on May 6 in what the law firm says could be the largest trademark verdict in U.S. history. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=1202421167860&rss=null Federal prosecutors' tactics are under fire as defendants in one Silicon Valley economic espionage case are used against defendants in another. For the government to succeed in its apparent strategy of trading sentencing leniency for one pair of defendants in order to help convict another pair on higher-profile charges, they'll have to first persuade Judge James Ware to turn aside defense challenges to the FBI's tactics, which were aired in his courtroom last week. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=1202421126406&rss=null Procter & Gamble Co. said May 2 it is suing rival Johnson & Johnson, alleging patent infringement over teeth-whitening strips. P&G charges that health products maker J&J and its McNeil-PPC unit broke two of its patents concerning the whitener's active ingredient and coating system. The lawsuit was filed in Wisconsin federal court. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=900005561733&rss=null Almost four decades after rare footage of John Lennon was shot at his estate in England, his widow is in court, fighting to keep the images private. World Wide Video LLC claims it owns the 10 hours of raw footage, but Yoko Ono claims she is the rightful owner. World Wide Video has filed a federal lawsuit against Ono, claiming Ono's attempts to stop the company from publicly showing the footage is a copyright infringement. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleIP.jsp?id=900005561690&rss=null 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. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=900005628503&rss=null 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. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=900005626356&rss=null 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. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=900005626348&rss=null