Designing Damages

In Samsung v. Apple, both determining “apportionment” and properly identifying an “article of manufacture” were key in the Court’s interpretation of the Code For over a century, design patents have enjoyed a distinct advantage over their more popular siblings, utility patents, when it comes to infringement damages recovery. Utility and design patent damages are set forth…

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When Is A Design Patent Invalid For Being Obvious?

When Is A Design Patent Invalid For Being Obvious?

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeal has granted a request for an en banc hearing to determine the proper standard for invalidity of design patents based on obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103. The expected en banc decision, in LKQ Corp. v. GM Global Technology Operations (LKQ, will be the first en banc decision by the…

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Warhol and Prince: Redefining Fair Use

In a highly consequential decision involving signature works of renowned artist Andy Warhol and photographs of music legend Prince, the U.S. Supreme Court has clarified the long-standing fair use defense to copyright infringement and narrowed the scope of transformative works that qualify as fair use. The decision in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts,…

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Supreme Court Nixes First Amendment Defense To Trademark Infringement

The U.S. Supreme Court has practically nixed a longstanding and widely adopted First Amendment defense co trademark infringement that exempted certain unauthorized but “artistically expressive~ usages of trademarks from the reach of the Lanham Act. The specific issue decided in Jack Daniel’s, was application of the “Rogers test”, a decades old standard, which aimed to…

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Copyright Protection for Public Performances of Pre-1972 Music

A 2021 decision by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has renewed focus on the scope and extent of copyright protection for public performances of pre-1972 sound recordings. The issue decided by the three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit was whether California state copyright law protects rights to public performances of music created before…

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The Subject Was Patent Eligibility

Section 101 of the patent act sets the foundational requirements an invention must meet to be eligible for patent protection. A recent en banc decision of the federal Circuit Court of Appeals highlights the deadlock, division, and confusion over the proper standard and correct application of the standard for subject matter eligibility under 35 USC…

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