The September 2025 edition of our Texas Round-Up focuses on developments in cases involving jurisdiction and pleadings....more
Patentees face many challenges in trying to prove literal infringement, particularly when dealing with competitors who make trivial modifications or superficial changes to the patented invention. In such situations, the...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a copyright infringement claim finding that the plaintiff had not plausibly alleged copying of protected characters. Anna Biani v....more
On May 29, 2025, PepsiCo won at least a reprieve, obtaining an order of dismissal of a former executive’s lawsuit. The former executive claimed the snack food and beverage giant defrauded and defamed him by denying he created...more
The bar for pleading solicitations in TCPA DNC cases may have just been raised a smidge. In Bell v. Hawx Services, 2025 WL 2533371 (E.D. Cal Sept. 3, 2025) a court dismissed a TCPA DNC case finding allegations the calls at...more
Uslu v. Evans, 24-CV-5482, 2025 WL 378919 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 31, 2025) - This case involved a vehicle owned by the co-defendant that allegedly rear-ended the plaintiff’s vehicle. The plaintiff brought action against the...more
In California trade secrets cases, parties almost always fight about the scope of alleged trade secrets because a state statute requires identification of secrets “with reasonable particularity” before discovery. But in...more
Welcome to WilmerHale’s bulletin on recent trade secret case law and relevant news items. We’ve affectionately nicknamed it “Readily Ascertainable” because, unlike a trade secret, it should be easy to figure out....more
In considering a motion to dismiss infringement claims for two related patents, the District of Massachusetts recently held that pre-suit knowledge of a “parent” patent, without more, is insufficient to establish pre-suit...more
The Central District of California ruled that the heightened pleading standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure Rule 9(b) applies to all three prongs of a false patent marking claim, including the third prong, competitive...more
Trader Joe’s is a hugely popular grocery chain that has expanded from its Southern California origins to operate close to 600 stores across the United States. Although Trader Joe’s has traditionally had a reputation as an...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Supreme Court’s decision in Iqbal on the requirement of specificity in pleading provided the guidance that “determining whether a plausible claim has been pled is a context-specific task that requires...more
As part of the Hatch-Waxman Act, given the lack of information on the allegedly infringing product, courts have found that patentees can satisfy the pleading requirements of Twombly/Iqbal without having access to the accused...more
Executive Summary: On April 27, 2021, a sharply divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, covering New York, Vermont, and Connecticut, held that in Fair Labor Standards Act Overtime cases (FLSA), to...more
Most states have adopted a version of what is typically referred to as the “Malfunction Theory” that permits circumstantial proof of a product defect in a product liability action. The Malfunction Theory largely corresponds...more
December 1, 2020 marked the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abrogation of Form 18—the model complaint that provided the minimum requirements for stating a claim of direct infringement. Following the abrogation...more
Medical device manufacturers who seek to dispose of meritless claims at the initial pleading stage have long relied upon the doctrine of federal regulatory preemption. This doctrine is embodied by 21 U.S.C. § 360k(a), the...more
In May 2019, the United States government made available a private right of action under Title III of the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996 (also known as Helms-Burton), 22 U.S.C. §§ 6021-6091....more
In Part I of this series, we discussed institutional bad faith and best practices for insurers to minimize the risk of these costly and intrusive lawsuits. In Part II, we will focus on cutting discovery off at the...more
The Second Circuit has breathed new life into Sarah Palin’s case against the New York Times by rejecting the use of an unusual “Iqbal” hearing to determine the plausibility of her allegations....more
On March 12, 2019, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals issued an Opinion in GEOMC Co. v. Calmare Therapeutics Inc., 918 F.3d 92, which clarifies the previously amorphous standard for pleading affirmative defenses. The...more
A recent District Court decision serves as a reminder to both Plaintiffs and Defendants to properly scrutinize a complaint for well-pleaded factual allegations. In Walker v. Lyons, Doughty & Veldhuis, P.C., et. al, No....more
On January 16, 2019, the Southern District of California dismissed a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claim against Lyft because the plaintiff failed to support the automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) element of...more
The U.S. Supreme Court’s blockbuster rulings in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal represented a major shift in federal pleading standards. Resolution of motions to dismiss frequently turns on whether a...more
The Situation: Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 84, which permitted U.S. patent-infringement lawsuits to proceed on very general allegations, was withdrawn three years ago. Subsequent court decisions have considered how much...more