The U.S. Supreme Court again unanimously reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, this time in two cases relating to attorney fees for patent infringement: Octane Fitness v. Icon Health & Fitness, No. 12-1184, and Highmark v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., No. 12-1163. The Federal Circuit is now 0-3 in cases before the court so far this term, and it has persuaded a grand total of zero justices to support affirmance in any of those cases. See Medtronic v ...
The Nils Svensson v Retriever Sverige AB decision addresses fundamental questions of copyright and Internet use. In essence, the case addresses the question of whether hyperlinking to freely accessible content requires authorization. The original plaintiffs of the Svensson case were Swedish journalists who wrote press articles that were published in the Goteborge-Posten newspaper and on its website, where they were freely accessible ...
On May 4, 2014 the Commission for Compensation and Royalties of the Israeli Patent Authority (the "Commission") rendered a decision relating to an employee's request to receive royalties for service inventions (the "Decision"). The Decision reduces the uncertainty that had surrounded the nature of an employee’s right to receive royalties for service inventions, and provides important guidelines for examining employee royalty waivers in agreements between employers and employees ...
An application to register the word mark BIMBO DOUGHNUTS as a Community Trade Mark (CTM) has been successfully opposed in the European courts. The ECJ upheld the General Court’s earlier decision that there is a likelihood of confusion between the word mark BIMBO DOUGHNUTS and a registered Spanish word mark, DOGHNUTS. (Bimbo SA v OHIM, Case C-591/12 P) ...
If you like having options in obtaining patent rights faster, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been eager to please in the last decade. Expediting a patent application can be highly desirable since the average pendency from filing to issuance is about three years on average, and can be even longer in certain technology areas or if an appeal to the Patent Trial & Appeal Board is required ...
A recent decision by the Florida Supreme Court is raising eyebrows among businesses and practitioners because it regards what constitutes a valid agreement to arbitrate, specifically, whether an arbitration clause written in English can be enforced against parties who do not speak the language. Given Florida’s diverse population, the opinion causes concern as some interpreted it to go against long-standing law that binds a signatory to a contract even if they did not fully understand it ...
At the turn of the 21st century, various high-ranking Federal Trade Commission (FTC) officials stated that the Federal Trade Commission Act does not create requirements for what data-security measures companies must enact to ensure that private information is protected. The FTC Act’s catch-all prohibition against “unfair” or “deceptive” acts or practices, 15 U.S.C. § 45(a), was not believed to cover the data-breach and cyber security domain ...
International infringers are notoriously difficult litigants to get in touch with; all too often the methods of service routinely available in the United States to serve defendants and bring them into court to halt infringement fail when exported overseas. The defendants in these cases often have little incentive to cooperate with either the court or whatever physical mechanism or service might be available in their jurisdiction ...
In Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., issued on June 2, 2014, the Supreme Court established a new legal test to determine whether a patent claim satisfies the definiteness requirement of 35 U.S.C. Section 112 ...
After two years of heated debate fuelled by a diplomatic scandal with the US, Brazil has enacted a groundbreaking bill of internet rights which will protect consumers and give added certainty to businesses. The government initially sought to stem the controversy related to the US government spying on Brazilian internet by proposing rules which would require all companies with operations in Brazil to keep their data stored within the country by setting up local servers ...
On June 2nd, 2014, President Michelle Bachelet entered a bill into Congress which seeks to modify Law N° 19.496 on the Protection of the Rights of Consumers (“CPA”). The message of the bill recognizes that the tools provided by the current legislation to address violations to the rights of consumers are not sufficiently efficient or dissuasive: in several cases it is less expensive for providers to pay a fine for breach of the CPA, than to comply with such regulation ...
The technology to “print” three dimensional objects with a 3D printer is not new, but as prices for the technology fall it becomes more readily available for private individuals. The possibilities that open up when individuals get access to 3D printers trigger the imagination, but the accompanying issues are not without complications. The technology, and the new areas of use to which it is put, also raises many questions, particularly regarding intellectual property rights ...
The numbers have been crunched and we have a winner! The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia — known nationally as the “Rocket Docket” — had the fastest trial docket in the country in 2013. Once again. For the sixth year in a row. The median time interval to trial for the 12-month time period ending March 31, 2013, (the most recently released data) is 11.1 months. That’s 11 ...
Browsing the internet – even in a commercial context – does not require authorisation from the relevant copyright owners, says the EU’s top court. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) confirmed in its recent judgment in Public Relations Consultants Association Ltd (PRCA) v Newspaper Licensing Agency Ltd (NLA) and Others (Case C-360/13) that browsing the internet without a copyright owner’s authorisation does not infringe the owner’s copyright ...
As more states adopt anti-SLAPP legislation (i.e., Oklahoma’s passage this Spring and Nevada’s expansion of its anti-SLAPP statute last year), more federal courts must decide whether such laws create a substantive right which should be applied by the federal judiciary ...
The Supreme Court today ruled that Aereo’s system for transmitting over-the-air television broadcasts through the Internet violates copyright law. In a 6-3 decision, with Justice Breyer writing for the majority, the Court ruled that Aereo both “performs” the television broadcasts at issue and does so “publicly.” With these key issues decided, the Court essentially sounded a death knell for Aereo and a similar but unrelated company, FilmOn X ...
Although data protection laws globally are converging around a set of shared concerns, there is little prospect of their being harmonised. Ultimately, data protection and data privacy issues are rooted in local culture, and evolve in response to specific local challenges. In Europe, our data protection laws were a strong reaction against secret reporting by the state on its citizens that was widespread after the Second World War ...
In March 2013, the Florida Supreme Court issued a seminal decision for businesses and commercial litigators, Tiara Condominium Association Inc. v. Marsh & McLennan Companies, 110 So. 3d 399 (Fla. 2013), in which it expressly limited the applicability of the economic loss rule to products liability cases. For decades, Florida courts had applied the economic loss rule to prohibit a party in contractual privity from seeking to recover economic damages arising from the contract ...
The U.S. Supreme Court during its 2013-2014 term decided on six patent cases, the last on June 19, 2014. These cases will have significant consequences for companies as they work to advance their strategy for protecting their intellectual property. The following summary provides highlights of each case. Medtronic Inc. v. Mirowski Family Ventures LLC Question: First some background: The Supreme Court in MedImmune, Inc. v. Genentech Inc., 549 U.S ...
The recent dynamic growth of virtual currencies presents the increasingly realistic chance of creation of an entirely new model of money and payment. Innovations allowing payments to be made at lightning speed, across state borders and outside of official payment systems, are appearing before our very eyes. Such payments are made without the involvement of banks or intermediaries, and often anonymously. This is a revolution not only for traditional payment systems, but also for the law ...
Loose lips sink ships. They also can sink the protections of the attorney-client privilege. A case in point is a recent decision from the Southern District of Florida. Guarantee Insurance Co. v. Heffernan Insurance Brokers, Inc., Case No. 13-23881-CIV (S.D. Fla. June 13, 2014). In that case, Guarantee Insurance had been sued for the alleged bad faith handling of a worker’s compensation insurance claim ...
Who knows why Luis Suarez bit Giorgio Chiellini at the FIFA World Cup 2014. Perhaps it’s a compliment to great Italian defending? Or something to do with the increasing demands of the modern game? Whatever the answer may be, none of us truly believe that this sort of thing is acceptable. But precisely what are the rules that regulate this sort of conduct? Most of us were told not to bite when we were very young - so that we know ...
