12 March

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Trademark Modernization Act Would Restore Presumption of Irreparable Harm in Trademark Cases

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“The Act clarifies that for trademark violations, a rebuttable presumption of irreparable harm exists given the consumer protection concerns that would occur otherwise.” Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) and Representatives Hank Johnson (D-GA), Doug Collins (R-GA), Martha Roby (R-AL) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) yesterday introduced legislation to modernize the U.S. trademark system. The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 is in part a response to the surge in fraudulent trademark filings, largely originating from China, that both the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and Congress have been grappling with over the last year. Perhaps most notably, in a stated effort to...

12 March

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Mad Dash to Coronavirus Vaccine May Face Legal Hurdles

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“Under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, the government can retain ownership rights in some patents for inventions generated by government-funded research…. The particular intellectual property issues raised by the new coronavirus vaccine vary wildly by who, and in what circumstances, the vaccine is developed.” Almost a third of the recently signed $8.3 billion bill to fund the United States response to the coronavirus outbreak is devoted directly to vaccine research and development. And while the realities of drug development and FDA approval mean it is unlikely any vaccine will be available before next year, the government has numerous tools at its...

11 March

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An Inventor’s Guide to Enforcing Patents on a Budget

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“Just because lawyers agree to take your case on contingency does not mean that litigating and enforcing patents costs you nothing out of pocket. There are other litigation expenses that must be accounted for, and it is usually your responsibility to pay for those up front.” Patent litigation and enforcing patents can be cost prohibitive for many individual inventors and smaller businesses. Hourly rates at large firms may be out of reach for those with “not so deep pockets,” and most litigation funding companies either avoid patent litigation altogether or require a case valuation in the tens of millions of dollars....

11 March

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Patent Filings Roundup: Supercell Locked in Dispute with Gree, Vudu Fends off Uniloc, BASF PGRs Ingevity Patents

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Every week, Unified Patents compiles all Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and district court filings, lists them, and releases them daily to subscribers. Each Wednesday, IP Watchdog will post the list, with a handful of interesting cases highlighted with context. To see the docket, filings, and learn more about the case, click on the links provided below. Litigation financing or patent aggregator parent data is provided where known and confirmable. The results appear in chronological order, below. Given that filings were light this week (perhaps the Coronavirus or the cancellation of the PTAB Bar Association’s annual meeting are to blame),...

11 March

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Senate IP Subcommittee Examines Foreign Approaches to Digital Piracy in Second Hearing on U.S. Copyright Reform

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“We finance our projects by granting companies exclusive distribution rights,” Yunger said. “Why would any financial partner pay for movies that are widely offered for free online knowing full well that they may never recoup their investments?” – Jonathan Yunger, Millennium Films Senate IP Subcommittee Chair, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), yesterday led the second in a series of Subcommittee hearings addressing the possibility of updating the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The hearing, titled “Copyright Law in Foreign Jurisdictions: How are other countries handling digital piracy?”, was aimed at examining foreign copyright laws in order to consider what may or may not...

10 March

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IPWatchdog CON2020 Has Been RESCHEDULED for September 13-15, 2020

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We have great news to share with all of our readers and our IPWatchdog CON2020 Speakers, Sponsors, Exhibitors and registrants. We have finally worked out an amicable resolution with the Renaissance Dallas Richardson hotel. Although we will still hold a Virtual Program on Monday, March 16, IPWatchdog CON2020 is no longer canceled. We have rescheduled for Sunday, September 13 through Tuesday, September 15, 2020. The program will be nearly identical to the live program we had scheduled for this month. As we work out the details for the newly scheduled event, we will update the IPWatchdog CON2020 website with any changes that...

10 March

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We Won’t Stop Coronavirus Without IP

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“Any of the IP-robbing proposals on the policy table would weaken our nation’s biopharmaceutical sector, diminish IP exclusivity, deny Americans the innovations patients enjoy the earliest access to, and take away from our patent system, which has already endured repeated assaults by Congress, courts and administrative bodies for two decades.” The recent White House meeting with leaders from American pharmaceutical companies sought their help in solving the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China and is currently gripping the globe. The meeting was part of the U.S. government marshaling our nation’s private and public medical research and development (R&D) resources in a...

03 March

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Federal Circuit says THE JOINT is merely descriptive without acquired distinctiveness

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On February 28th, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) affirmed the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board’s (TTAB) decision to refuse registration of two trademark applications belonging to JC Hospitality LLC (JC). Both applications sought to register the mark THE JOINT under different classes of services (Class 41 and Class 43). See In re JC Hospitality. The CAFC agreed with the TTAB that the marks were merely descriptive of JC’s services, and lacked any showing that the marks acquired distinctiveness as source identifiers. The law is not particularly new in this non-precedential decision, although the trademark applicant obviously had a different...

03 March

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This Week in DC: Buying Unsafe Counterfeits, 5G Security, Blockchain Tech for Small Business and Online Sales Taxes

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This week in our nation’s capital, the House of Representatives hosts a number of committee hearings related to technology and innovation. Various hearings will explore online sales tax impacts on small businesses, unsafe counterfeit products bought by American consumers, uses of blockchain technology among small businesses, issues with veteran electronic health record systems, U.S. Cyber Command’s 2021 budget and the role of advanced nuclear reactors in creating a cleaner economy. Over in the Senate, a pair of hearings on Wednesday will discuss issues with securing the 5G supply chain and data surveillance concerns caused by partnerships between major tech firms...

02 March

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The Impact of Overturning eBay v. MercExchange

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At a time when most policymakers rightly argue that China and other countries need to do more to clamp down on intellectual property infringement, overturning the four-factor eBay v. MercExchange test would impose new hurdles and increase the PAE problem that Congress and the Supreme Court fought to address over the last two decades.” As anyone who follows the landscape of patent litigation knows, the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay Inc. v. MercExchange LLC, 547 U.S. 388 (2006) was meant for one primary reason—to combat patent asserted entities (PAEs).[1] It is true that prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in eBay, it was rare for a...