Issuing a revised opinion following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic Int’l, Inc., the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit determined that none of the defendant’s purely foreign sales...more
After the district court, on remand, held that laches did not bar relief, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit again determined that the district court abused its discretion by not properly applying the presumption...more
Addressing copyright fair use in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent guidance in Warhol, the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit partially reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the...more
4/11/2024
/ Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts Inc v Goldsmith ,
Appeals ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Derivative Works ,
Fair Use ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
The Copyright Act ,
Work-For-Hire
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed contributory trademark infringement for the first time, finding that specific knowledge is required for liability to attach. Y.Y.G.M. SA, DBA Brandy Melville v....more
8/3/2023
/ Appeals ,
Counterfeiting ,
Damages ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Lanham Act ,
Online Marketplace ,
Remand ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Vacated ,
Willful Blindness
The Supreme Court agreed to review the US Patent & Trademark Office’s (PTO) challenge to a February 2022 ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. In the ruling at issue, the Federal Circuit held that...more
On the second round of a copyright dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded (again) to the district court to apply the “independent economic value test” handed...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a summary judgment grant in favor of the opposers of a certification mark application for the trademark GRUYERE to designate cheese that originates in the Gruyère region...more
In February 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States held in Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L.P., that lack of either factual or legal knowledge on the part of a copyright holder can excuse an inaccuracy in the...more
The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) denied registration of several US trademark applications for the mark FUCK, even though the applicant had overcome a prohibition on the registration of “immoral or scandalous” trademarks...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit analyzed the fair use doctrine of US copyright law in a dispute for recognition of a 2001 French judgment relating to a finding of copyright infringement of certain photographic...more
7/21/2022
/ Appeals ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Diversity ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Fine Art ,
France ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Photographs ,
Reversal ,
The Copyright Act ,
Trials
On remand from the Supreme Court of the United States, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reaffirmed its own 2019 opinion that preliminarily enjoined a professional networking platform from denying a data analytics...more
5/12/2022
/ Appeals ,
Competition ,
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Data Collection ,
DMCA ,
LinkedIn ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Web Scraping
Revisiting jurisprudence touching on the Lanham Act and the First Amendment from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Matal v. Tam and Iancu v. Brunetti, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that applying Sec....more
3/10/2022
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Corporate Counsel ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Lanham Act ,
Matal v Tam ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademark Trial and Appeal Board ,
Trademarks
The Supreme Court of the United States held that lack of factual or legal knowledge can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration under a safe harbor contained in the Copyright Act. As a result, an applicant’s...more
For the second time, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit examined the standard for demonstrating fraud in a party’s claim of a trademark’s acquired distinctiveness for purposes of registration under Section 2(f)...more
Addressing fair use as an affirmative defense to copyright infringement, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit amended its recent opinion, reversing a district court’s summary judgment in favor of fair use. The Court...more
In a long-running trademark dispute between two charitable organizations, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that the appellee did not preserve its challenge to the district court’s denial of summary judgment...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a grant of summary judgment, finding that a trademark registrant had alleged infringement of its trademark without having engaged in bona fide use of the trademark in...more
In a case spanning nearly 40 years of art and touching the estates of two of the world’s most well-known artists, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit clarified its position on the application of the fair use...more
In a dispute over the alleged infringement of a floral print textile design, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the plaintiff’s ownership of a valid copyright, but reversed and remanded for further...more
Presented with a publishing company defendant’s mashup of Dr. Seuss’ copyrighted works with Star Trek in a work titled Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go!, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit tackled claims of both...more
The maker of BRIZZY-brand hard seltzer claimed that consumers would confuse a product branded VIZZY hard seltzer with its own. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit disagreed, however, and affirmed the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit invoked “precedents that are relevant but not directly on point” to examine when employment contract provisions may require assignment of inventions conceived post-employment...more
In upholding a grocery store chain’s standing to petition for cancellation of a US trademark registration, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB’s) express...more
Referring to the act of counterfeiting as “hard core” or “first degree” trademark infringement, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for the first time confirmed that the Lanham Act requires a likelihood of confusion...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated a district court’s summary judgment grant in favor of a fine jewelry producer for trademark infringement, counterfeiting and unfair competition because factual disputes...more