A Nebraska court upheld a jury’s reasonable royalty award of more than $14 million for infringement of Exmark’s patent relating to lawnmower baffles.  

Before Newman, Linn, and Dyk.  Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon.

Summary: The Trademark Act’s definition of “use in commerce” as a requirement for obtaining a federal trademark does not limit the scope of the “uses” that may constitute trademark infringement.

It’s been 70 years since Carol Channing first sang “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” on Broadway, with Marilyn Monroe singing the more famous rendition four years later on the silver screen.  Around the same time as Monroe’s performance, a research group under the direction of General Electric created the first commercially successful synthetic diamond.  Fast forward several decades and there are now several methods by which “lab-created diamonds” or “synthetic diamonds,” as they are called in the industry, can be produced.

Before Moore, Mayer, and Linn.  Appeal from the Patent and Trial Appeal Board. Summary: A graphical user interface that allows users to place orders for items (such as shares of…

Before: O’Malley, Reyna, and Hughes. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Delaware.

Summary:  A parent patent specification of a continuation-in-part child patent constitutes intrinsic evidence for the purpose of claim construction with respect to statements in the parent specification involving common subject matter with the claim terms at issue.

Yesterday Democrat and Republican legislators from both the Senate and the House of Representatives released a one page outline of a proposal to change the law of patent eligibility.  The legislators supporting this proposal include Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC); Senator Chris Coons (D-DE); Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA-9); Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA-4); and Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH-15).

A New Jersey jury awarded Mondis $45 million in patent damages, based on LG’s sales of infringing televisions that support the “Plug & Play” standard.  

Before Newman, O’Malley, and Wallach.  Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: Diligence requires “reasonably continuous diligence” and is not negated if the inventor works on improvements and evaluates alternatives while developing an invention. 

Before Prost, Lourie and Stoll.  Appeal from the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.

Summary: In evaluating whether a webpage printout is an acceptable specimen of use for a trademark in connection with goods, the USPTO may look for information on the webpage essential to purchasing decisions such as price for the goods, minimum quantities one may order, accepted methods of payment, and shipping information.  If the webpage simply provides a phone number or email address to contact for sales information, this is likely not enough to show the specimen is a point-of-sale display and thus an acceptable specimen of use. 

Before Prost, Dyk, and Wallach. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.

Summary: Asserting the district court’s claim construction prevented consideration of additional prior art, without identifying the specific prior art, fails to meet the requirements of FRCP 46.