Civil Procedure › Commercial Law & Contracts › Intellectual Property

Patent Watch: Motiva, LLC. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n

The "Commission is fundamentally a trade forum, not an intellectual property forum" [and] litigation expenses directed at preventing, instead of encouraging manufacture of, articles incorporating patented technology does not...more

If Patented Technology Can Copy Itself, When Do Patent Rights Cease?

Patent rights in a patented self-replicating technology, such as seeds, continue until the patent term is ended and not before. On May 13, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bowman v. Monsanto that the patent rights in seeds are...more

Patent Exhaustion Doctrine Does Not Protect Farmers Who Replant Patented Seeds

In a brief, unanimous opinion written by Justice Kagan, the Supreme Court yesterday agreed with Monsanto that the patent exhaustion doctrine does not enable farmers to replant and reproduce patented seeds without the...more

Patent Watch: Bowman v. Monsanto Co.

On May 13, 2013, in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Federal Circuit's affirmance of the district court's judgment that Bowman infringed U.S. Patents No. 5,352,605 and No. RE39,247, which related to...more

Bowman v. Monsanto: Crisis Averted on IP Protection for Self-Replicating Technologies

Life science companies in general (and seed companies in particular) are breathing a sigh of relief following the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday in Bowman v. Monsanto. As Bowman wended its way through district...more

Bowman v. Monsanto Co. (2013)

Today, in Bowman v. Monsanto Co., the Supreme Court determined that the doctrine of patent exhaustion did not permit a farmer who buys patented seeds to repro­duce them through planting and harvesting without the patent...more

Bowman v. Monsanto

Supreme Court Ruling on Patent Rights of Self-Replicating Technology

Full text copy of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Bowman v. Monsanto Co. et al that Monsanto’s patent rights extend to future generations of its patented seeds. From Joe Barnes at the Washington Post: “Farmers must pay...more

Cars Lawsuit Runs Out of Gas

The United States Supreme Court recently brought final resolution to Mandeville-Anthony v. Walt Disney Co., a dispute over the ownership of Disney and Pixar’s animated movies “Cars” and “Cars 2,” and the spin-off television...more

A First for FRAND: Federal Court in Microsoft v. Motorola Sets FRAND Royalty Rates for Standard Essential Patents

Microsoft v. Motorola developed a framework for courts to assess fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms for standard-essential patents. Its roadmap and analysis will probably influence future FRAND cases in...more

Rubin v. General Hospital Corp. (Fed. Cir. 2013)

On March 28, the Federal Circuit in Rubin v. General Hospital Corp. affirmed judgment by the District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissing the suit brought by Drs. Berish Rubin and Sylvia Anderson against The...more

Do Patents Control Self-Replicating Technologies? Supreme Court Hears Argument that Sale of Patented Seed Exhausts Future Patent

Patent infringement arises when one “makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells” a patented invention without authority from the patent holder. However, once the first authorized sale of the patented product has occurred, the...more

Will Google Break the GPL?

The subject of open source licensing has created a level of uncertainty amongst companies, especially with General Public License (GPL) or GPL derivatives when it comes to intellectual property restrictions on coded data. The...more

Federal Circuit Review - Volume 3 | Issue 4 - April 2013

In This Issue: • Double Patenting Applies With Distinct Inventive Entities • Inducement Judgment Remanded in Light of Akamai • First Sale Doctrine Applies to Sales Made Abroad - Excerpt from Double...more

Florida Court Reverses Preliminary Injunction On Restrictive Covenant

If you have followed this blog, then you likely already know that restrictive covenants are legal and enforceable in Florida. You should also know that – although enforceable – restrictive covenants are strictly construed...more

Federal Court Says No to “Used” Digital Music Marketplace

Digital music has come a long way since the era of widespread unauthorized sharing, with digital music sales estimated to be approaching $6 billion worldwide. As this market grows, a natural question is whether there can be a...more

Capital Records v. ReDigi, Inc.: New York District Court Determines that First Sale Doctrine does NOT apply to Digital Media. Did...

On March 30, 2013, only 11 days after the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley to extend the first sale doctrine to foreign made goods, a United States District Court in the Southern District of New...more

Settlements (Part 1 of 3): 5 Reasons Non-Compete Cases Shouldn't (and Don't) Settle

Every judge, lawyer, and litigant is probably familiar with the maxim that most civil cases settle. That's undoubtedly true. But some classes of suits are better positioned to settle than others. In non-compete and other...more

Litigation Alert: U.S. Supreme Court to Weigh In on Reverse Payment Deals

On March 25, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in FTC v. Actavis, Inc.,1 which is on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. This case addresses a type of patent litigation settlement...more

Patent Watch: Frolow v. Wilson Sporting Goods Co.

On March 15, 2013, in Frolow v. Wilson Sporting Goods Co., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Newman, Clevenger, Moore*) affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part and remanded the district court's summary judgment...more

Case Brief: Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals

[Ed. The Supreme Court heard oral argument today in Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals. While Patent Docs will provide analysis regarding the oral argument in a subsequent post, we provide the following...more

Clearance: Proskauer's Quarterly Antitrust Update - Winter 2013

In This Issue: - Watson and Reverse Payments: An Opportunity to Resolve the Competing Tension Between Antitrust and Patent Law Under the Hatch-Waxman Act - Judge Posner on the Limits of the Per Se Rule against Price...more

BLG Monthly Update March 2013

Fake judgments, fashion law, lots on contracts and privilege in the BLG Monthly Update for March 2013!...more

2013 Update on Chapter 93A

1. Standard governing liability under 93A - Higher standard applies for business plaintiffs – More decisions confirm that a business plaintiff must make a higher showing of defendant wrongdoing in order to prevail...more

Business Torts In Virginia

In late January, the United State District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting in Richmond, handed down an opinion that provided a succinct analysis of the pleading standards applicable to several Virginia...more

Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC v. Roche Diagnostics GmbH, C.A. No. 5589-VCP (Del. Ch. Feb. 22, 2013) (Parsons, V.C.)

In this memorandum opinion addressing defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the Court of Chancery dismissed plaintiffs’ claim that a reverse triangular merger constituted an assignment of rights in breach of a contractual...more