General IP News

Tech companies and other employers note: H1-B cap registration opens March 9, 2021. Full details are available at this blog post by my partner Catherine Wadhwani, published on Fox Rothschild’s Immigration View . ... Read More

EUIPO has issued a report “China EUTM and RCD Focus” on 10 years of China trademark (TM) and registered community design (RCD) filings in the EU.  The report also details the impact of the pandemic on Chinese filings. The report makes for useful comparisons  with the recent USPTO report on ... Read More

Notwithstanding China’s civil law tradition, China’s use of anti-suit injunctions (ASI’s) in FRAND disputes  has begun to be selected for adoption into the body of “typical cases” 典型案例 that may be referred to by Chinese IP judges when encountering cases with similar fact patterns.    Last year, the SPC issued ... Read More

The National Security Commission Report on Artificial Intelligence has been released. Chapter 12 covers IP-related issues, focusing on China. The report calls for greater interagency coordination, more stability in patent-eligible subejct matter, and a critical view of China's SEP-contributions. ... Read More

China's Supreme People's Procuratorate has set up a specialized IP office, with several local counterpart offices. Trade secret prosecution is a focus. 23,000 cases were prosecuted in the last five years. ... Read More

Chief Judge Pallmeyer issued her tenth amended COVID General Order last week. As with the last several amended orders, there are no additional blanket case extensions. The General Order basically extends existing restrictions, including ordering that no jury trials — both civil and criminal — may begin until, at least, April 5, ... Read More

A forthcoming lecture by Mark Cohen on Weaponization of Intellectual Property Against China at UCSD. ... Read More

I always enjoy these and recommend the free GALA webinars to those interested in advertising law; I joined in progress due to some technical difficulties on my end. Joseph Lewczak: FTC v. Teami ($15 million settlement, all but $1 million suspended), where there were other bad things like fighting cancer ... Read More

In a February 17, 2021 Order, Chief Judge Pallmeyer set out a COVID testing protocol to allow for safe in-person proceedings, in particular jury trials. The order requires the following: Court employees working in the court facilities will be tested for COVID no more than twice per week using saliva tests. ... Read More

Peter Lee, UC Davis School of Law Autonomy, Copyright, and the Structure of Creative Production Theory of the firm would suggest more consolidation within the firm in creative industries than exists. But creative autonomy is one reason that people would prefer not to be employees. © also has a role ... Read More

Ester van Zimmeren, University of Antwerp Exploring Trust Building Mechanisms for Specialized Intellectual Property Courts CJEU patent court hasn’t entered into force, but there are local and regional bodies. Question: will users trust a new court? Trust in the court and trust in the judges are both important. Trust implies ... Read More

Even during a time of trade conflict, there was considerable litigation and patent licensing activity with China, including a pronounced role in global markets for Chinese companies and in China for US companies. Patent disputes and licensing involved a diverse group of technologies. Chinese companies have become more active in ... Read More

Jeanne Fromer & Barton Beebe, NYU School of Law The Future of Trademark Depletion in a Global, Multilingual Economy: Evidence and Lessons from the European Union TMs transcend boundaries b/c brands transcend boundaries; even small businesses are often looking beyond borders to other countries. EU is good for study b/c ... Read More

BJ Ard, University of Wisconsin Law School Competition With and Without IP in the Video Game Industry Negative space; a number of lessons. Character protection is meaningful: Pac-Man/combination of elements. Patents can cover some elements/game rules, but most gameplay won’t satisfy novelty. Trademark, right of publicity. Trade secret is also ... Read More

Jerome H. Reichman, Duke Law School, Duke University Until 1994, there weren’t many options when a nation didn’t comply with IP treaties: complaints and retaliation against that country’s nationals. Then came TRIPS. Arbitration, including damages, became available; winner can also collect damages via tariffs. Hasn’t functioned recently because minimum # ... Read More

Ned Snow, University of South Carolina School of Law The Tension Between Science and Creativity in the Copyright Clause Fabrications: clearly creative, but contrary to the meaning of “science.” Deceitful expression might provide knowledge about deception. CSAM/revenge porn: no benefit to the public (evidence of crime is not purpose of ... Read More

 From NYIPLA: The New York Intellectual Property Law Association (NYIPLA) is currently accepting submissions for the Hon. William C. Conner Intellectual Property Law Writing Competition. We would highly appreciate being able to work collaboratively with Harvard to offer this opportunity to your law students.  The award information is listed below and ... Read More

About a dozen years ago while reviewing SIPO monthly statistics, I noticed that the percentage of foreign applications for invention patents for the prior year had shrunk to the point where they were only slightly in excess of domestic patents.  A week or so later in January, I read a ... Read More

On January 27, 2021, the CNIPA issued the “国家知识产权局关于进一步严格规范专利申请行为的通知" (Notice on Further Strictly Regulating Patent Application Behavior)”. Although the Notice, on first glance, is reacting to the USPTO Report and is transformative in nature, it in fact builds upon prior efforts of CNIPA and other agencies, it does not completely ... Read More

Four upcoming speaking events on China IP in February 2021. ... Read More

Cathay Smith, University of Montana Blewett School of Law Weaponizing Copyright Pure suppression: Dr. Drew’s minimization of Covid; YouTubers compiled these clips and he sent takedown notices. Lawyer asserted © over text messages to ex partner when they were published on a blog by the ex partner to substantiate that ... Read More

Dan Burk, University of California, Irvine School of Law Racial Bias in Algorithmic IP Unpacking bias: divergent meanings: statistical bias (sampling), design (wrong type of model, model created for one purpose used for another), the fact that “raw data” is an oxymoron, social bias (inappropriate social outcome—different than the bias ... Read More

I will be talking February 22, 2021 at 7 PM at a virtual Duke University webinar on “China’s Emerging Intellectual Property Edge: Challenges and Opportunities.”  The program is sponsored by Duke’s Asia/Pacific Institute, as well as its Center on Science & Technology Policy and its Center for Innovation Policy.  Prof. ... Read More

Cabatit v. Sunnova Energy Corp., No. C089576, --- Cal.Rptr.3d ----, 2020 WL 8365909 (Ct. App. Dec. 31, 2020) California isn’t fond of mandatory consumer arbitration. Here, the court finds the arbitration agreement unconscionable and refuses to enforce it against a claim relating to the solar power lease agreement between the ... Read More

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. v. FCA US LLC, 2021 WL 323253, No. 18-cv-12645 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 1, 2021) Plaintiffs sued FCA for a judgment of noninfringement of the Jeep grille design in its Roxor vehicle (which dispute mainly took place in the ITC), and FCA counterclaimed for, among other things, ... Read More

Ezeokoli v. Uber Technol., Inc., 2021 WL 247975, No. A156445 (Cal. Ct. App. Jan. 26, 2021) Plaintiffs, a putative class of taxi drivers, lost this Lanham Act false advertising appeal because they couldn’t show that Uber’s allegedly false statements harmed them (as opposed to Uber’s nonfalse business model). Uber allegedly ... Read More

 In this pandemic year, I'm experimenting with short videos as part of the pre-class materials. They generally elaborate on a point to set up class discussion. I'm sharing them because, as Tom Lehrer says, they might prove useful to some of you someday perhaps in a somewhat bizarre set of ... Read More

What is the future of US - China dialogues on IP? Perhaps the future is better in IP than in other areas, regardless of the fate of the Phase 1 Agreement - at least those were lessons that could be drawn from the recent Berkeley-Tsinghua program on transnational IP litigation. ... Read More

Tanya Aplin & Lionel Bently, Global Mandatory Fair Use, AU Book Talk. Based on their new book. Art 10(1) Berne Convention: It shall be permissibleto make quotations from a published work; mention shall be made of the source and name of author if it appears. This constitutes global, mandatory, fair ... Read More

In response to recent questions about a potential breach of the CM/ECF system, the Northern District issued a General Order setting out a definition of Highly Sensitive Documents (HSD). The General Order states that “[m]ost sealed filings in civil cases do not constitute HSDs” and specifically excludes “[c]ommercial [and] proprietary ... Read More