United States – Page 11

Trademark Clearinghouse – First Annual Renewal Deadline Approaching

Oct 23 2014

The Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) is the central repository for validated trademarks for the purpose of protecting brands under the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) New Generic Top-Level Domains program (new gTLD program), permitting participation in both the Sunrise and Claims processes that ICANN established to give preference to brand owners. If your company was an early registrant in the TMCH, it is likely that your registrations had an effective date of November 5, 2013, which is the date that the TMCH went ‘live’. While the TMCH procedures provide for multi-year registrations, many registrants initially paid their US$150 fee for only a single year of registration. If so, your deadline to renew is November 5, 2014.

U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Sustains First Fraud Claim Since In re Bose in 2009

Oct 21 2014

On September 30, 2014, in Nationstar Mortgage LLC v. Mujahid Ahmad, the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (Board) sustained a claim of fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the first time since the Federal Circuit issued its 2009 decision in In re Bose, upholding an opposition to the mark NATIONSTAR for various real estate brokerage, mortgage and management services.

In response to fraud allegations, Ahmad needed to show that he was using the NATIONSTAR mark with each of the services prior to the filing date of his in-use application. Read More

The Debate Continues: What is a ‘Transformative Use’ for ‘Fair Use’ Purposes

Oct 01 2014

In a recent decision by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (Seventh Circuit), Judge Frank Easterbrook expressly joined the ongoing debate over the scope of ‘transformative use’ analysis in the ‘fair use’ defense to copyright infringement. In Kienitz v. Sconnie Nation LLC, the court reviewed the trial court’s determination that the using of a photograph of the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, on a critical T-shirt was ‘fair use’ and did not create liability under the Copyright Act. In finding ‘fair use’, the trial court found support in the recent opinion in Cariou v. Prince, in which the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the use of a photographic image in a work of ‘appropriation art’ was ‘transformative’ and thus a ‘fair use’.

Patents for Humanity: It’s Not Just an Invention

Sep 25 2014

The deadline for submission of applications for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) competition, PATENTS FOR HUMANITY, has been extended to October 31, 2014. The purpose of the program is to incentivize patent owners, applicants and licensees to use their technologies to address humanitarian issues in any of the following categories:

medicine
nutrition
sanitation
household energy
living standards. Read More

Purple is the New Orange: FDA Releases a Purple Book for Biosimilars

Sep 15 2014

On September 9, 2014, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) published the first edition of the Purple Book: Lists of Licensed Biological Products with Reference Product Exclusivity and Biosimilarity or Interchangeability Evaluations (“Purple Book”). The Purple Book is the biological equivalent of the pharmaceutical Orange Book, and seeks to aid regulatory agents, generic manufacturers, and physicians by arming them with information related to biological products such as biosimilars including, for example, providing information regarding the interchangeability of products. Read More

Australian Courts Confirm Status Quo for Patenting Gene Sequences

Sep 05 2014

Today, a five-judge bench of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia unanimously decided that Myriad Genetics Inc’s (Myriad) patent covering the isolated BRCA1 gene (Patent) is valid.

In Yvonne D’Arcy v Myriad Genetics Inc & Anor (5 September 2014) the Full Federal Court rejected the reasoning of the U.S. Supreme Court, when it found in 2013 that certain claims of a closely related U.S. Patent of Myriad were invalid as the claim to isolated nucleic acid was a claim to a “product of nature” and not patentable subject matter.

For the pro-patent lobby and the biotech industry, this is good news for innovation in life sciences in Australia.

PTO Seeks to Improve Patent Quality

Sep 04 2014

At the same time that it announced an almost 50% reduction in its backlog of request for continued examinations over the past year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a new initiative to improve patent quality. During the quarterly Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC) meeting in August, USPTO Commissioner for Patents, Peggy Focarino, said the new focus on quality was a result of the PTO approaching optimal steady state application pendency and the AIA creating a sustainable fee reserve to fund such initiatives. Read More

On Tap at the U.S. Supreme Court: An Important Trademark Case

Sep 03 2014

During its next term, which begins in October 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court will continue to decide important intellectual property cases.

In B&B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Industries, Inc., the Court will tackle an issue that has long vexed trademark owners and their lawyers: ‘how much deference to give determinations by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) on the issue of likelihood of confusion, when a subsequent infringement action is brought in federal court?’. In other words, must a court accept the TTAB’s decision on likelihood of confusion, even though the TTAB’s jurisdiction is limited to a trademark’s registrability? Read More

FDA Accepts First Biosimilar Application Filed Under Section 351(K) of the Public Health Services Act

Aug 06 2014

On 24 July 2014, over four years after the enactment of the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, the FDA accepted its first biosimilar application from Sandoz Inc. (Sandoz). Sandoz’s application is for a biosimilar version of Amgen Inc.’s (Amgen) Neupogen® (filgrastim). Neupogen® is a pharmaceutical analog of human granulocyte colony stimulating factor that is used to treat neutropenia, a condition where the body does not make enough neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. Amgen’s Neuprogen® is indicated for use by patients receiving strong chemotherapy to reduce their risk of infection. Read More

Another Piece in the Software Patent Puzzle – The Federal Circuit’s First Take on Alice

Jul 28 2014

The Federal Circuit recently released its first interpretation of the Supreme Court’s late June decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, et al. (Alice) In Digitech Image Tech., LLC v. Electronics for Imaging, Inc., et al. (Digitech) the Federal Circuit added a few more wrinkles to the emerging law of software patent eligibility.

In Digitech, the Federal Circuit held that all of the asserted claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,128,415 were ineligible for patenting. The patent was directed to device profiles, which are data structures used to correct for hardware-specific distortions in digital image processing systems. Read More

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