By: Zach Schroeder
The U.S. Supreme Court held the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations does not equate to a three-year limit on damages when plaintiffs bring claims under the Act using the discovery rule doctrine. In doing so, the Court resolves a circuit split while leaving unanswered whether the discovery rule doctrine applies to…
In Impossible X LLC v. Impossible Foods Inc., Impossible Foods recently filed an opposition to Impossible X’s petition for certiorari, which asks the Supreme Court to decide (1) whether some disputes should require so-called “rough causality” before finding specific personal jurisdiction and (2) in declaratory noninfringement actions, whether activities other than rights-enforcement efforts…
The D.C. Circuit is set to decide whether a work generated “autonomously” by an artificial intelligence (“AI”) computer system was properly denied copyright registration by the United States Copyright Office. The work at issue, titled “A Recent Entrance to Paradise,” was produced by an AI system called “Creativity Machine.” The AI system’s creator, Stephen Thaler,…
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Jack Daniels Properties Inc. v. VIP Products LLC, 599 U.S. 140 (2023), the Ninth Circuit reversed its earlier decision affirming that a publication called Punchbowl News did not infringe a trademark of Punchbowl Inc. (“Punchbowl”), a greeting card and event invitation company. The Ninth Circuit reasoned…
The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted certiorari to consider whether a copyright plaintiff’s timely claim under the discovery rule is subject to retrospective relief for infringement occurring more than three years before the suit was filed.
Musician Sherman Nealy and his company, Music Specialist Inc. (collectively, “Nealy”), sued Warner Chappell Music, Inc. (“Warner”), for copyright…
By: Bailey Hopkins* and David G. Barker
The Supreme Court recently held Abitron Austria GmbH not liable for using Hetronic International, Inc.’s trademarks outside of the United States. Reversing the Tenth Circuit and resolving a circuit split, the Court held that Sections 1114(1)(a) and 1125(a)(1) of the Lanham Act do not apply extraterritorially and extend only…
By: Zach Schroeder and Courtney Moore*
The Ninth Circuit recently upheld a district court’s decision in favor of furniture designer Jason Scott Collection, Inc. (“JSC”) against Trendily Furniture, LLC, Trendily Home Collection, and Raul Malhotra (collectively, “Trendily”) finding Trendily liable for trade dress infringement for willfully copying, manufacturing, and selling identical JSC furniture pieces. The…
The Supreme Court issued its ruling yesterday in a trademark lawsuit between Jack Daniel’s and the seller of a dog toy resembling a bottle of Jack Daniel’s famous whiskey. In a unanimous decision, the Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that the “Bad Spaniels” dog toy was subject to the usual likelihood of confusion…
The Supreme Court unanimously held last week in Amgen v. Sanofi that a patent’s specification must enable a person skilled in the art to make and use the full scope of the invention as defined by its claims.
Amgen sued Sanofi in 2014, alleging that Sanofi had infringed its cholesterol-lowering drug patents, which disclosed 26…
Yesterday, the Supreme Court held 7-2 that a specific use of Andy Warhol’s “Orange Prince” silk screen—based on a copyrighted photograph of Prince—was not fair use. In doing so the Court focused not solely on the “transformative use” aspect of the first factor of a four-part fair use analysis, but on the entire first factor…
