News

The Eleventh Circuit on April 1, 2019, held that Kroma EU, a European cosmetics company, lacked standing to sue the Kardashian sisters for trademark infringement in the US.

The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on April 1, 2019, held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) must reconsider its decision to invalidate IBM’s U.S. Patent No. 7,631,346; the patent is related to a system for reducing authentication burdens by allowing a user to sign-in only once while accessing multiple applications.

The UK is due to leave the European Union – an economic and political partnership of 28 countries – ending 46 years of British membership. But the exact timing remains unclear.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on March 26, 2019, affirmed a district court ruling which declined to disgorge Becton Dickinson & Co.’s (BD) profits despite the fact the syringe maker was found liable by a jury on multiple Lanham Act violations.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced that she has appointed Karyn A. Temple as Register of Copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office, effective March 27, 2019. Temple has been Acting Register of Copyrights since October 21, 2016.

The US Patent and Trademark Office on March 27, 2019, alerted EFS-Web users about a system defect in the initial web-based application data sheet (ADS) and the corrected web-based ADS.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 26, 2019, held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board wrongly invalidated an Arctic Cat Inc. patent based on an earlier-filed application.

On March 28, the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force will host the third public meeting on Developing the Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works at the USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.

USPTO Director Andrei Iancu on March 13, 2019, appeared at an oversight hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on March 8, 2019, overturned Apple Inc.’s IPR victory against PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC, holding that the ‘310 patent was not unpatentable due to obviousness because one of the PTAB’s key underlying fact findings was not supported by substantial evidence.

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board on March 13, 2019, published the fifth installment of its Motion to Amend Study, which tracks and analyzes all motions to amend filed in AIA trials through the end of September 2018.

The USPTO has appointed Scott R. Boalick as Chief Judge for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

The PTAB designated as precedential Lectrosonics, Inc. v. Zaxcom, Inc, an order which provides guidance and information regarding statutory and regulatory requirements for a motion to amend in light of Federal Circuit case law.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on February 26, 2019, held that a “bedside machine” that displays medical information was patent-ineligible because it was directed to the abstract idea of using a computer to gather, analyze, and display data. Univ. of Fla. Research Found. v. Gen. Elec. Co., Fed. Cir., No. 2018-1284, 2/26/19.

The United States Patent & Trademark Office is hosting Virtual Instructor Led Training (vILT) on April 2 and 3. The course is entitled “Examining Computer-Implemented Functional Claim Limitations for Compliance with 35 U.S.C. § 112.”

The US Supreme Court on March 4, 2019, granted the USPTO’s petition to review the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling in NantKwest Inc. v. Iancu.

Acting Register of Copyrights Karyn A. Temple has appointed Kevin R. Amer deputy general counsel of the United States Copyright Office, said the United States Copyright Office in a March 5, 2019 news alert.

The United States Supreme Court on March 4, 2019, issued a unanimous decision holding that winning parties in copyright cases can’t collect expert-witness fees and jury consultant costs.

The Supreme Court on March 4, 2019, ruled that a copyright holder must register their work with the US Copyright Office before suing for infringement, and “registration” within the meaning of 17 USC §411(a) occurs not when an application for registration is filed, but when the Copyright Office registers the copyright.

The American Intellectual Property Law Association filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court arguing that the Lanham Act ban against registering immoral and scandalous marks violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment because it has a viewpoint-discriminatory effect.