A well-orchestrated intellectual property strategy requires carefully and thoughtfully leveraging copyright, trademark, and patent laws, as highlighted by a recent decision handed down by the United Sates Court of Appeals for...more
CERAMTEC GMBH v. COORSTEK BIOCERAMICS LLC - Before Lourie, Taranto, and Stark. Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. A utility patent may still be considered strong...more
2024 was another busy year for district court decisions! There were multiple jury trials, case-dispositive design patent decisions, and claim construction decisions across a range of venues and at a range of case postures. We...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Trademark Trial & Appeal Board decision canceling trademarks for the color pink for ceramic hip components, stating that substantial evidence supported the Board’s...more
Addressing for the first time whether a functional limitation must carry the same meaning in all claims, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit determined that it need not, vacating a district court decision to the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court’s summary judgment grant in a trademark dispute, finding that the district court did not err in concluding that a subset of design elements lacked...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a district court’s decision that a candymaker cannot trademark the shape and colors of watermelon candy, finding that the combined colors and shape of the candy are...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit found that liability under the Copyright Act and liability under the Lanham Act are not mutually exclusive and that liability under the Copyright Act does not negate trade dress...more
Addressing a multitude of issues, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling dismissing infringement of one patent and finding a trade dress invalid but reversed the invalidation of...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement in a trade dress suit, finding that the trade dress was functional and the attorneys’ fee award—as diminished by the district...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that a representative claim was directed to a patent-eligible improvement to computer functionality, and therefore reversed a decision authored by Judge Leonard P....more
We previously wrote... about decisions made by the District Court of Minnesota and the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Mayo Clinic v. United States regarding challenges to the validity of certain Treasury...more
Addressing the functionality of colors in design marks, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the district court’s entry of judgment for a trademark owner on its unfair competition and trademark claims,...more
Addressing for the second time whether the design of a chocolate-dipped, stick-shaped cookie was eligible for trade dress protection, the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held again that the product configuration was...more
SIMIO, LLC V. FLEXSIM SOFTWARE PRODUCTS, INC. Before Prost, Clevenger, and Stoll. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Summary: A claim whose only inventive concept is the applications...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that trade dress protection did not extend to the design of a chocolate-dipped, stick-shaped cookie, because the product configuration was useful. Ezaki Glico Kabushiki...more
On November 15, 2019, the Supreme Court granted cert in Google LLC v. Oracle America Inc. For many observers, this was a long time coming; the parties have been litigating the underlying case since August 2010, and from its...more
KONINKLIJKE KPN N.V. v. GEMALTO M2M GMBH - Before Dyk, Chen, and Stoll. Appeal from the District of Delaware. Summary: Claims directed to improving the functionality of one tool that is part of a system do not...more
Addressing the issue of the functional requirements of design patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit refused to invalidate design patents on truck parts on the basis of aesthetic functionality. Automotive...more
In confirming that the unregistered trade dress of the Chambord French press coffeemaker was nonfunctional, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s determination that plaintiff’s...more
• In a relatively rare opinion regarding design patents, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit weighed in recently on the requirements for design patents in its Automotive Body Parts Association v. Ford Global...more
On July 23, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit released its decision affirming summary judgment that the asserted design patents were not invalid for non-ornamentality under 35 U.S.C. § 171, and rejecting...more
The increased prominence of Section 101 in computer-related patent disputes stems from the Supreme Court case of Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. Before Alice reached the Supreme Court, ten judges of the Federal Circuit considered...more
In LifeNet Health v. LifeCell Corporation, one of the many issues the Federal Circuit decided was that functional claim language did not create a divided infringement situation, even though an independent actor could impact...more
Applicants for design patents should consider claiming functional aspects of their designs in addition to the purely ornamental elements as part of their claiming strategy to achieve the broadest protection for their designs....more