BUREAU NATIONAL INTERPROFESSIONNEL DU COGNAC v. COLOGNE & COGNAC ENTERTAINMENT Before Lourie, Clevenger and Hughes.  Appeal from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. Summary:  Fame and likelihood of confusion analyses…

MOBILE ACUITY LTD. v. BLIPPAR LTD. Before Lourie, Bryson, and Stark. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Summary: Patent claims that merely recite…

CELANESE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION v. ITC Before Reyna, Mayer, and Cunningham. Appeal from the International Trade Commission. Summary: Process patent claims are invalid under the on-sale bar (35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1))…

GE HealthCare on July 25th, 2024, announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to develop purpose-built foundation models and generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. According to the GE HealthCare press release, the company intends to utilize Amazon Bedrock to amplify the advantages of generative AI for their customers and build its own proprietary generative AI applications for healthcare use cases.

KOSS CORPORATION v. BOSE CORPORATION
Before Hughes, Stoll, and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: Filing an amended complaint does not nullify a dismissal order that was not later vacated. Such an order merges into a final judgement for purposes of issue preclusion.

MILLER MENDEL, INC. V. CITY OF ANNA, TEXAS
Before Moore, Stoll, and Cunningham. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Summary: No live controversy existed over patent claims omitted from infringement contentions prior to a judgment on the pleadings. Claims remaining in controversy were invalid under § 101.

ZYXEL COMMUNICATIONS CORP. v. UNM RAINFOREST INNOVATIONS
Before Dyk, Prost, and Stark. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: Because the PTAB’s MTA Pilot Program’s core purpose is to allow patent owners to address errors or deficiencies in motions to amend, the Board may exercise its discretion to allow reply briefing to correct such errors.

SOFTVIEW LLC v. APPLE INC.
Before Bryson, Lourie, and Reyna. Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”), Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”).
Summary: Estoppel under 37 C.F.R. § 42.73(d)(3)(i) only applies to obtaining new or amended claims in the PTO and does not apply to maintaining already issued claims.

SANHO CORP. V. KAIJET TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL LIMITED, INC.
Before Dyk, Clevenger, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Summary: An invention is not “publicly disclosed” under 35 USC 102(b)(2)(B) by the inventor’s private sale, even though a private sale may constitute an invalidating “public use” under 35 USC 102(a)(1).

Almost half of the teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA) were recently sued for copyright infringement. In the complaint filed against the Atlanta Hawks, one of the plaintiffs—publisher Kobalt Music Publishing America (Kobalt), the exclusive agent
for the licensing of all other plaintiffs’ copyrights at issue—alleged that the NBA teams have been exploiting the rights conferred to the copyright holders by syncing videos posted on various websites and social media platforms (e.g., Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok) with music owned by third parties without obtaining the necessary consent to do so. Knobbe Martens Partner Jonathan Hyman and Associate Nickolas Taylor recently authored an article discussing concerns surrounding intellectual property infringement by social media content creators. The lawsuits filed against the various NBA teams similarly highlights the intellectual property infringement concerns that can (and often do) arise in the modern world of social media and the internet.