Standing Rights

Due to the lower threshold required for satisfying constitutional standing, a prospective plaintiff may meet the constitutional standing test but fail the one for statutory standing ALL PATENT INFRINGEMENT lawsuits start with a plaintiff, but the criteria for meeting the threshold standing requirements to make a patent plaintiff eligible to bring and maintain such a…

Read More

Clarifying Standing in Patent Infringement Lawsuits

The Federal Circuit clarified that in patent infringement suits, the key to constitutional standing is the “right to bring suit.” A “bare licensee” with only a promise not to be sued lacks exclusionary rights and cannot sue. A recent court of appeal decision has clarified the requirements for satisfying constitutional standing in order to bring a patent infringement suit. The Intel. Tech., LLC. v. Zebra…

Read More

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…

Read More

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…

Read More

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,…

Read More

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…

Read More