Retail Restructuring
Various debt-burdened retailers are looking to their intellectual property assets as a source of untapped value for refinancing transactions. While it remains to be seen which strategies will be most successful, IP assets will play a key role in future retail restructurings.
IP News
Federal Circuit: Collateral Estoppel Can Apply to Patents With Claims Similar To Those in Previously Litigated<br>Federal Circuit Uses 'Rule of Reason' To Determine Patent Owner Had an Early Reduction to Practice
Protecting Product Packaging and Product Configuration
Registering and protecting product designs is challenging. Preliminarily, trade dress cannot be registered or protected as a trademark if it is functional — if it is “essential to the use or purpose of the article or it affects the cost or quality of the article.”
Patent Lost Profit Damages and Apportionment
<b><i>Split Federal Circuit Declined to Reconsider Panel's Decision that Lost Profits Based on the</i> Panduit <i>Factors Are Fully Apportioned</b></i><p>On Sept. 1, 2017, a split Federal Circuit declined to rehear a panel decision in <i>Mentor Graphics Corp. v. EVE-USA, Inc.</i>, a case that could have significant implications for lost profit damages and apportionment.
Tactical Considerations for Patent Owner Responses in IPRs
U.S. Patent Office statistics show that the PTAB has found at least one claim of a challenged patent to be unpatentable in over 80% of IPRs. Given these odds, and the fact that institution of an IPR is not appealable, a patent owner's best shot at preserving its patent rights intact is to defeat institution of the IPR trial in the first instance.
Trade Secrets Litigation: The No-Longer-Forgotten Part of the Tech IP Arsenal
<b><i>With Massive Jury Rewards and the DTSA Encouraging Federal Litigation, Trade Secrets Litigation Is Seeing a Surge in the Tech Industry</b></i><p>These days, many of the big IP litigation battles involving companies like Facebook, Uber, and Epic, have nothing to do with patents, trademarks or copyrights at all. Instead, it's all about the perhaps forgotten part of IP: trade secrets.
IP News
Federal Circuit Throws Out District Court's Test for “Place of Business” for Purposes of Determining Venue in Patent Cases
On the Move
Kobre & Kim LLP announced that Daniel Saval has joined the firm's cross-border insolvency litigation practice as a partner in the New York office.…
