Federal courts have long disagreed over whether the unauthorized "making available" of a plaintiff's works to the public is sufficient to constitute copyright infringement under the U.S. Copyright Act. Two June District Court decisions demonstrated the differences between the views of the Fourth and Ninth Circuits.
- July 01, 2020Stan Soocher
Federal Circuit Finds Preamble Not Limiting and Claims Reciting Means-Plus-Function Limitations Without Disclosure of Corresponding Structures Cannot Be Determined Unpatentable as Indefinite in an IPR Proceeding Federal Circuit Finds That District Court Correctly Applied the Disclosure-Dedication Doctrine In Granting a Motion for Judgment of Non-Infringement on the Pleadings
July 01, 2020Jeff Ginsberg and Zhiqiang LiuRomag Fasteners, Inc. v. Fossil, Inc. The Supreme Court, settling a circuit split, held that, although highly important, willfulness is not a prerequisite for a trademark infringement plaintiff to obtain a profits award.
June 01, 2020Sarah BenowichOn May 14, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a circuit split, finding that any preclusion of litigation defenses must comply with traditional res judicata principles, and ruling that Lucky Brand was not precluded from asserting its defenses in its long-standing trademark litigation against Marcel Fashions Group
June 01, 2020Anthony J. DreyerMachine learning allows certain AI to create entirely new content based upon the materials it used to learn. In the process of creating new content, AI may create copies of copyrighted works in memory storage as a byproduct of its overall output sequence. This article explores authorship and ownership of such AI-generated content, and to what extent, if any, can copyrights be infringed upon when AI reproduces copyrighted works for machine learning.
June 01, 2020Shaleen J. Patel and Sushmitha RajeevanHolding that the parties' executed agreement mooted the issues in the case, the Federal Circuit recently reversed a district court's decision to grant summary judgment of non-infringement despite the parties' agreement. The decision builds upon prior Federal Circuit case law giving effect to settlement agreements.
June 01, 2020Rudy Kim and Chris HanArticle III Inter Partes Review Decision Precluded By Congress, SCOTUS Rules SDNY: Video Game Makers Not Violating Copyright with NBA Player Tattoos
June 01, 2020Howard Shire and Shaleen PatelThe U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that individual states are free to commit copyright infringement. The Court held that Congress attempted to abrogate states' sovereign immunity in an unconstitutional manner when enacting the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act of 1990 (CRCA).
May 01, 2020Shaleen J. PatelWhile AI is rising as a key commercial player at the global scale with an expected market size of almost $400 billion by 2025, are patent laws around the world equipped to incentivize this revolution?
May 01, 2020Gunjan AgarwalEffective corporate collaborations — whether close customer relationships, supplier partnerships or formal joint ventures — demand that sensitive information be shared. Without proper agreements and well-defined boundaries, however, those corporate collaborations can lead to loss of trade secret protection and entangle the parties in litigation.
May 01, 2020Felix Eyzaguirre and Katherine D. Prescott









