Cover Story The Intellectual Property Strategist

In a recent decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit addressed the issue of whether purchasing market competitors’ search engine keyword terms, known as “conquesting,” constitutes trademark infringement.

The International Trade Commission is empowered to block the importation into the United States of products that infringe U.S. intellectual property rights, In the past, the ITC generally instituted investigations without questioning the importation allegations in the complaint, however in several recent cases, the ITC declined to institute an investigation as to certain proposed respondents due to inadequate pleading of importation.

Although pursuit of an appeal to the Federal Circuit may under some circumstances prove to be quicker and less expensive, appeals to district courts are becoming increasingly attractive given recent changes in the law and USPTO practice in defending these actions.

On August 13, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling that reversed the District of Delaware's application of the Federal Circuit precedent in In re: Cellect to invalidate a claim in an earlier-filed parent application over admittedly patentably indistinct claims in later-filed (and earlier-expired) child patents. This decision has resolved some substantial questions about the application of obviousness-type double patenting that had been raised by last year's In re Cellect decision.

Warren Buffett's wisdom rings true: "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently." In our current landscape of social media and viral content, a brand's reputation — its most valuable asset — can be severely damaged in mere seconds.

Blockchain domain names offer decentralized alternatives to traditional DNS-based domain names, promising enhanced security, privacy and censorship resistance. However, these benefits come with significant challenges, particularly for brand owners seeking to protect their trademarks in these new digital spaces.

The protection of trade secrets has long been understood to be a legitimate business interest, and, traditionally, companies have used non-competition clauses to protect their trade secrets. Now, with non-competition agreements in doubt and facing greater scrutiny, companies will need to rely on other protection mechanisms.

This article describes certain key developments in the period from passage of the CHIPS Act through the present day, and provides a brief survey of key grantmaking and investment activity by U.S. government agencies since passage of the Act.