News

The June 2019 update of the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Manual of Procedure (TBMP) is now available on the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board webpage under "Policies and procedures.

On June 25, 2019, the Federal Circuit held that a trial court wrongly dismissed Cellspin Soft, Inc.’s (Cellspin), patent infringement lawsuits after determining that the four disputed patents were invalid and covered an abstract idea.

The US Supreme Court on June 24, 2019, agreed to review a case that will decide whether states can preserve the copyrights to official annotations of their laws if they hire a private company to compile and sell them.

On June 24, 2019, the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Circuit's decision in In re Brunetti, 877 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2017), ruling that the Lanham Act provision which bars the registration of “immoral[ ] or scandalous” trademarks violates the First Amendment. Iancu v. Brunetti, No. 18-302, 6/24/2019.

The EU General Court in Luxembourg on June 19, 2019, limited the reach of sportswear giant Adidas’s iconic trademark.

The Federal Circuit on June 17, 2019, held that patent holders who introduce new claims during the prosecution of a patent must ensure those claims meet the requirements in the original patent.

The American Intellectual Property Law Association on June 14, 2019, filed an amicus brief in 1-800 Contacts v. Federal Trade Commission.

On April 29 – May 3, 2019, the IPP Far East Committee dispatched a delegation to visit Taiwan and Singapore. The trip delegation was headed up by Patrick Coyne, AIPLA’s Second Vice President, and Tiep Nguyen, the Far East Committee Chair.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 14, 2019, held that 11th Amendment Sovereign Immunity does not protect patents owned by individual states from being cancelled via inter partes review (IPR).

AIPLA attended meetings of the Industry IP5, IP5 Heads of Offices, and the Industry Trilateral in Incheon, Korea June 10-13, 2019.

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on June 12, 2019, affirmed a $2 million win for Bodum USA Inc., makers of the Chambord French press coffeemaker, in a trade dress infringement case.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on June 13, 2019, vacated and remanded a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision which had invalidated Power Integrations’ Patent No. 6,212,079 (the ’079 patent) because the inter partes review (IPR) was time-barred under § 315(b).

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on June 11, 2019, held that the word “capsule” is “merely descriptive” of cell phone cases and cannot be registered as a trademark. Uncommon, LLC v. Spigen, Inc., 7th Cir., No. 18-1917, 6/11/19.

A federal agency is not a "person" who may petition for post-issuance review under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) of 2011, the Supreme Court held June 10, 2019. Return Mail Inc. v. United States Postal Service, U.S., No. 17-1594, 06/10/2019.

AIPLA President-Elect Barbara Fiacco presented the views of the Association at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property's second of three hearings on “The State of Patent Eligibility in America.”

The USPTO announced that PKI authentication for EFS-Web and Private PAIR will be unavailable starting on Wednesday, June 5, at 12:01 a.m. ET, until further notice.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on May 31, 2019, reversed a $5,396,250 patent infringement verdict against Brunswick Corp., owner of many popular boating brands. Cobalt Boats, LLC v. Brunswick Corp., Fed. Cir., No. 2018-1376, unpublished 5/31/19.

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property will hold its first two hearings on “The State of Patent Eligibility in America.”

The US District Court for the Northern District of California on May 29, 2019, held that Juniper Networks Inc., an American networking products developer, did not infringe Finjan Inc.’s malware protection patents.