PETRELLA v. METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER, INC. Frank Petrella wrote two screenplays and one book based on the life of boxing champion Jake LaMotta. One of the screenplays, registered in 1963, identifies Patrella as the sole author, written in collaboration with LaMotta. LaMotta and Patrella assigned their rights in the screenplay, including renewal rights, to Chartoff-Winkler Productions, Inc. […]
Continue Reading →The Federal Circuit issued its opinion in In re Roslin Institute, a case involving cloned animals. The Roslin Institute (Roslin) owns a patent for methods of cloning animals, based on the work that created Dolly the Sheep. The inventors of that patent also assigned to Roslin an application claiming protection for the clones themselves. During […]
Continue Reading →InIn re Packard the Federal Circuit held that the USPTO need not follow the insolubly ambiguous standard in order to satisfy a prima facie rejection for indefiniteness. Rather, the Federal Circuit held that when the USPTO has initially issued a well-grounded rejection that identifies ways in which language in a claim is ambiguous, vague, incoherent, […]
Continue Reading →On Friday, May 2, 2014 a jury found Samsung Electronics Co. ("Samsung") liable for infringing two patents owned by Apple, Inc. ("Apple"). The two patents are U.S. Patent No.5,946,647, which is directed to systems and methods that analyze text for things that can be hyperlinked, e.g., email addresses, websites, and phone numbers, and then provides […]
Continue Reading →Two U.S. Supreme Court opinions issued today—Octane Fitness, LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness, Inc. and Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Management System, Inc.—have changed the framework for which exceptional cases are analyzed under § 285 of the Patent Act. For years, the controlling case with regard to § 285 of the Patent Act was […]
Continue Reading →InTrebo Manufacturing, Inc., v. Firefly Equipment, LLC, the Federal Circuit held that a plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction for patent infringement does not need to practice the patent at issue in order to receive an injunction, so long as it sells a competing product. Trebro brought suit alleging that FireFly's sod harvester product infringed its […]
Continue Reading →Federal Copyright Law generally protects works that are fixed in a tangible medium from unauthorized use, including copying, performance, exhibition, and broadcasting. However, sound recordings from before 1972 are treated uniquely under the law—a situation that has resulted in real legal problems. When enacted, the Federal Copyright Law preempted any state rights relating to copyright […]
Continue Reading →The basic requirements for filing a U.S. utility patent are rather straightforward. Patents are granted for new, useful and non-obvious processes, products or compositions of matter. Similarly, any new, useful and non-obvious improvement to these categories of inventions may be granted a patent. Although seemingly straightforward, the three basic requirements for patentability are impacted by […]
Continue Reading →The Supreme Court's recent decision in Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. prescribed the appropriate framework for determining whether a plaintiff has standing in a false advertising action under the 15 U.S.C. 1125(a). Prior to this decision, there were three competing approaches to determining whether a plaintiff has standing to bring suit under […]
Continue Reading →In StoneEagle Services, Inc.,v. Gillman the Federal Circuit confirmed that assistance in reducing aninvention to practice generally does not contribute to inventorship. In this case, the issue centered on whether there was a sufficient controversy regarding inventorship for the case to remain in federal court. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant had "falsely claimed that […]
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