IP Law Blog

On October 8th, the U.S. House of Representative’s Intelligence Committee issued an investigative report (the “Report”) on issues related to the operations of Huawei Technologies Company Ltd. and ZTE Corporation.  The Report potentially has far-reaching implications for the U.S. telecommunications supply chain.

On March 20, 2012, the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., No. 10-1150.  In this case, the Court considered the validity of two patents belonging to Prometheus with claims directed towards the use of thiopurine drugs for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.  In general, the claims recited steps including … Continue reading →

The American Institute of Physics and John Wiley & Sons Inc. recently filed a copyright infringement complaint against two U.S. law firms for making copies of copyrighted works and submitting them, without permission, to clients and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during prosecution of client patent applications.  On January 19, 2012, the USPTO issued … Continue reading →

The TTAB recently handed down its precedential decision in Nike, Inc. v. Peter Maher and Patricia Hoyt Maher, 100 USPQ2d 1018 (2011).  In this decision, the Mahers filed an application to register the mark JUST JESU IT in connection with items of clothing, including t-shirts and caps.  Nike opposed registration based on its prior rights to the mark JUST … Continue reading →

Formerly known as the Patent Reform Act of 2011, the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is close to being passed into law. Versions of the Act were approved in March in the Senate (S. 23, 95-5) and in June in the House (H.R. 1249, 304-117), and the House bill has been referred to the Senate.

It has been a busy year for ICANN, the organization responsible for the creation and implementation of domain names.  In April, ICANN approved the long disputed and controversial .XXX extension.  A few weeks ago, ICANN also finally approved the new generic top level domain (gTLD) program.  These developments present a number of issues for trademark owners and … Continue reading →

Recently the United States Patent Office announced that it is extending and expanding the Full First Action Interview Pilot Program. The program provides for the Patent Applicant and the Examiner to conduct an interview prior to the issuance of the first Office Action on the merits. The program has been extended until May 16, 2012 … Continue reading →

There has been a significant amount of discussion among the members of the patent bar concerning the proper standard to apply under a theory of joint liability for patent infringement. The Federal Circuit has weighed in several times, adopting a “direction and control” standard in the BMC and Muniauction cases. More recently, the Federal Circuit went further … Continue reading →

The recent SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Omnisource DDS, LLC, 97 USPQ2d 1300 (TTAB 2010), case reminds us that applicants who file trademark applications based on a bona fide intent to use a mark in commerce need to have supporting documentation and/or objective evidence in the form of real life facts and actions to demonstrate that they possessed the … Continue reading →