United States | IP Law Watch

H2 Production: A Shift Towards Electrolysis

Mar 20 2023

Hydrogen production technology, according to the joint EPO-IEA report summarizing patent trends in the hydrogen economy (summarized here), accounts for the largest percentage of patenting activity since 2011 among the three primary stages of the hydrogen value chain (i.e., (i) production, (ii) storage, distribution, and transformation, and (iii) end-use industrial applications). Trends show a shift in hydrogen production from carbon-intensive methods to technologies that do not rely on fossil fuels. The bulk of recent increased patent activity is directed to electrolysis development, while patent activity related to production from biomass and waste has decreased.

False Advertising – Large Jury Verdicts in 2022 and the Likely Uptick in False Advertising Suits in 2023 – Part 1

Feb 10 2023

Some of the largest false advertising jury verdicts were recorded in 2022. This, coupled with increased inflationary pressures will likely lead to an uptick in false advertising suits given that such pressures will impact consumer spending habits, leading to increased scrutiny of competitor advertising practices—particularly in the social media space.

Are Medical Diagnostic Methods Patent Ineligible by Convention?: CareDx, Inc. v. Natera, Inc. and Eurofins Viracor, Inc.

Jan 30 2023

In CareDx, Inc. v. Natera, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that CareDx’s patent claims to methods of detecting organ transplant rejection were invalid as patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101.¹ Affirming the district court, the Federal Circuit determined that CareDx’s claims “are directed to a natural law together with conventional steps to detect or quantify the manifestation of that law,”² relying on “admissions” in the patents themselves that the claims recited only “conventional” techniques.’

If You Want It, You Should Have Done a Search On It: Why Trademark Searches are Essential Before Settling Down With a New Brand

Jan 13 2023

Have you chosen a brand only to learn months later that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is refusing to register it due to someone else’s prior trademark registration or pending application? The USPTO’s most recent Q4 2022 data indicates that it takes 8 months or more for a trademark application to be reviewed—and ideally approved—by an examiner. Given that prolonged timeline, any issues with the application, such as a similar third-party mark that could prevent your own registration, may not surface until you or your company has already invested heavily in the mark.

This raises the question: what can be done for brands eager to launch but that want some measure of comfort that their trademark will be valid?

The answer: Searching.

New Guidance for Digital Content Creators’ Metadata from the U.S. Court of Appeals

Dec 21 2022

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently held that merely removing copyright management information (CMI), without showing that that defendant knew or would have reason to know that its actions would induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal a copyright infringement is insufficient to meet the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) requirements for liability for wrongful removal of CMI.¹

CMI typically consists of items such as title and authorship. In the digital world, CMI frequently is provided in metadata, essentially background technical data about a digital work. Metadata is a set of data that describes and provides information about other data. CMI typically is included in the metadata embedded in photographs, videos, documents, and other digital media. When distributing a digital work, the metadata, including CMI, may be altered in the course of reformatting the work, typically to reduce the size of the work.

The NFT Collection: The rise of NFTs – Copyright strikes back? (Part 3)

Jul 07 2022

In a recent post, we examined the regulatory landscape of NFTs (see here). In our third of our series on NFTs, we will address the intellectual property concerns often highlighted by NFT critics.

Latvian Citizen Fined US$4.5 Million and Sentenced to More than 4 Years of Imprisonment for Fraudulent Trade Mark Renewal Scheme

Jul 04 2022

Misleading renewal notices to trademark owners continue to cause confusion and, in some cases, unnecessary fees paid to fraudulent schemers that do not result in renewal of a trademark registration. Recently, a Latvian citizen was sentenced to more than four years in U.S. prison and fined over US$4.5 million in restitution, after he pleaded guilty to a three-year scheme that defrauded thousands of U.S. trademark owners of over US$1.2 million.

The NFT Collection: A Brave NFT World – A Regulatory Review of NFT’s (Part 2)

Jun 30 2022

In a recent alert, we painted the big NFT picture, highlighting what a non-fungible token (NFT) means and the opportunities they present (see here). In this second part of the NFT series, we will take a deeper look at local regulatory control (or lack thereof) in this uncharted territory.

New Interim Guidance on Fintiv Factors

Jun 23 2022

On 21 June 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark office (USPTO) issued interim guidance on how the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) should exercise its discretion when determining whether to institute a post-grant proceeding.

The NFT Collection: NFT Basics and Opportunities (Part 1)

Jun 22 2022

NFTs have gone mainstream. But what are NFTs? Should your business develop its own NFT? How are they regulated? In The NFT Collection series of alerts, we will delve into these questions to help your business understand this new technology.

Tag: United States