Justia Intellectual Property Opinion Summaries

Tammy Livingston, individually and as a beneficiary and co-trustee of the Livingston Music Interest Trust, sued her mother, Travilyn Livingston, over the termination of copyright assignments and associated royalties for songs authored by Jay Livingston. Jay had assigned his copyright interests in several songs to a music publishing company owned by Travilyn. Travilyn later invoked her statutory right to terminate these copyright grants and filed termination notices with the U.S. Copyright Office. Tammy challenged these terminations, claiming her rights as a beneficiary were affected.The United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee dismissed Tammy's complaint, holding that it failed to state a claim. Tammy appealed the decision, arguing that the termination notices were ineffective, defective, or invalid, and that she retained a state law right to receive royalties from the songs covered by the terminated agreements.The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the district court's dismissal. The court held that the 2003 California probate court order, which declared that the Family Trust held no ownership interests in Jay's copyrights, precluded Tammy's claims. The court also found that Jay had validly executed the copyright grants as an individual, not as a trustee, and that Travilyn owned Jay Livingston Music at the time of the assignments. Additionally, the court rejected Tammy's arguments regarding the termination notices' compliance with federal requirements, noting that she failed to plead specific factual allegations for most of the notices. Finally, the court held that Tammy did not identify a state law basis for her claim to royalties, thus failing to meet the pleading standards under Civil Rule 12(b)(6). View "Livingston v. Jay Livingston Music, Inc." on Justia Law

Egenera, Inc. alleged that Cisco Systems, Inc. infringed its U.S. Patent No. 7,231,430, which describes a digitalized processing platform for deploying virtual systems through configuration commands. The patent aims to improve conventional server systems by allowing virtual management of processing resources without physical rewiring. Egenera claimed that Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) infringed claims 1, 3-5, and 7-8 of the patent. The district court granted summary judgment of noninfringement for claims 1 and 5 and, following a jury trial, entered judgment of noninfringement for claims 3 and 7.The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts found that Cisco's UCS did not infringe the asserted claims. The court granted summary judgment of noninfringement for claims 1 and 5, concluding that the UCS CPUs did not emulate Ethernet functionality as required by the claims. The jury found noninfringement for claims 3 and 7, and the district court denied Egenera's post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) or a new trial.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and affirmed the district court's decisions. The appellate court agreed that Egenera failed to present sufficient evidence to show that the UCS CPUs emulated Ethernet functionality, as required by claims 1 and 5. The court also found that substantial evidence supported the jury's verdict of noninfringement for claims 3 and 7, particularly regarding the network topology limitation. Additionally, the appellate court upheld the district court's denial of Egenera's motion for a new trial, finding no abuse of discretion in the court's handling of jury instructions, evidentiary rulings, and closing arguments. View "EGENERA, INC. v. CISCO SYSTEMS, INC. " on Justia Law

In 1991, three singers—Di Reed, Tonya Harris, and Joi Marshall—formed the vocal group Jade, which achieved significant success in the early 1990s. The group disbanded in 1995, and the members pursued individual careers. In 2018, the three agreed to a reunion tour and jointly applied for the "JADE" service mark, which was approved in 2019. However, the reunion tour did not materialize, and in 2021, Marshall and Harris performed with another singer, Myracle Holloway, under the JADE mark, leading Reed to file a lawsuit.Reed sued Marshall, Harris, and Holloway in the Southern District of Texas, alleging Lanham Act violations, including trademark infringement, dilution, and unfair competition, as well as Texas state law claims. The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that Reed could not allege Lanham Act claims against her co-owners of the mark or Holloway, who performed with their permission.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the case. The court held that the Lanham Act does not authorize claims between co-owners of a trademark. It affirmed the district court's summary judgment, stating that co-owners of a mark cannot sue each other for infringement or dilution under the Lanham Act. The court also found that Reed's unfair competition claims could not survive summary judgment and that there was no supplemental jurisdiction over the Texas law claims. The court emphasized that co-owners have the right to use the mark as they please, and a valid licensee of one co-owner cannot be liable to another co-owner for infringement. View "Reed v. Marshall" on Justia Law

Eye Therapies, LLC owns the '742 patent, which describes a method to reduce eye redness using a low-concentration dose of brimonidine. The independent claims of the patent specify that the method consists essentially of administering brimonidine at certain concentrations. During patent prosecution, the examiner initially rejected the claims for being anticipated by prior art, specifically U.S. Patent No. 6,242,442 (Dean), which disclosed the use of brimonidine in combination with another active ingredient, brinzolamide. The applicant amended the claims to replace "comprising" with "consisting essentially of" and argued that the claimed methods did not require any other active ingredients besides brimonidine. The examiner allowed the amended claims based on this representation.The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted an inter partes review on petition by Slayback Pharma, LLC and concluded that all challenged claims were unpatentable. The Board interpreted the phrase "consisting essentially of" to allow the inclusion of additional active ingredients that do not materially affect the basic and novel properties of the invention. Based on this construction, the Board found that the prior art taught or suggested each limitation of the challenged claims and that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining the references.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the Board's claim construction. The court held that the phrase "consisting essentially of" in the '742 patent should be interpreted to exclude the use of active ingredients other than brimonidine, based on the prosecution history. The court vacated the Board's obviousness finding and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with the corrected claim construction. View "EYE THERAPIES, LLC v. SLAYBACK PHARMA LLC " on Justia Law

Crabar/GBF, Inc. (Crabar) sued Mark Wright, Wright Printing Co. (WPCO), Mardra Sikora, Jamie Frederickson, and Alexandra Kohlhaas for trade secret violations and related claims. Crabar alleged that after purchasing WPCO's folder business, WPCO retained and used confidential information, including customer lists and sales data, to launch a competing folder business. Crabar also claimed that former employees Kohlhaas and Frederickson took and used Crabar's confidential information to aid WPCO's new business.The United States District Court for the District of Nebraska held an eleven-day trial, where the jury found all defendants liable on each count, awarding Crabar over five million dollars in compensatory and exemplary damages. Post-trial motions led to a final amended judgment of roughly four million dollars against the defendants. Defendants appealed, challenging several of the district court’s rulings.The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reviewed the case. The court affirmed the district court's decisions, including the denial of WPCO's motion for judgment as a matter of law regarding a contractual damages limitation, finding WPCO waived the argument by not raising it in the final pretrial order. The court also upheld the enforceability of confidentiality agreements signed by Frederickson and Kohlhaas, and found sufficient evidence to support the jury's findings on trade secret misappropriation, tortious interference, and causation of damages.The Eighth Circuit also ruled that the district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting expert testimony on damages, as the expert's assumptions were not fundamentally unsupported. The court found no error in the jury's award calculations, rejecting the argument of double recovery and affirming the sufficiency of evidence linking defendants' actions to Crabar's damages. The court concluded that the jury's awards were not excessive or the result of passion or prejudice. The judgment of the district court was affirmed. View "Crabar/GBF, Inc. v. Wright" on Justia Law

CoStar Group, Inc. and CoStar Realty Information, Inc. (collectively, “CoStar”) and Commercial Real Estate Exchange, Inc. (“CREXi”) are online platforms competing in the commercial real estate listing, information, and auction markets. CoStar sued CREXi for copyright infringement, alleging that CREXi listed images and information hosted by CoStar without permission. CREXi counterclaimed on antitrust grounds, asserting that CoStar engaged in monopolistic practices to exclude competition.The United States District Court for the Central District of California dismissed CREXi’s antitrust counterclaims and directed entry of final judgment on those claims under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b). The district court held that CREXi failed to show CoStar had monopoly power and that the agreements at issue were not exclusive. CREXi appealed the dismissal of its antitrust counterclaims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the district court’s dismissal of the antitrust counterclaims. The Ninth Circuit held that CREXi successfully stated claims under §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, California’s Cartwright Act, and the Unfair Competition Law. The court found that CREXi plausibly alleged CoStar had monopoly power in the relevant markets and engaged in anticompetitive conduct by entering into de facto exclusive deals with brokers and imposing technological barriers to entry. The court concluded that a monopolist using its power to exclude competitors and maintain monopoly power violates § 2 of the Sherman Act, and using exclusive deals to do so violates § 1 of the Sherman Act and the Cartwright Act. The court also held that CREXi stated claims under the “unfair” and “unlawful” prongs of the Unfair Competition Law. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of CREXi’s tortious interference claims as they were improperly raised. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "COSTAR GROUP, INC. V. COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE EXCHANGE, INC." on Justia Law

Future Link Systems, LLC entered into a license agreement with MediaTek, Inc. in 2019, which stipulated that MediaTek would pay Future Link a lump sum if Future Link filed a lawsuit against Realtek Semiconductor Corporation. Future Link subsequently filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission (ITC) accusing Realtek of patent infringement. During the litigation, Future Link settled with a third party and informed Realtek, leading Realtek to file a motion for sanctions against Future Link before the administrative law judge (ALJ).The ALJ expressed concerns about the legality of the agreement between Future Link and MediaTek but ultimately denied Realtek's motion for sanctions, concluding that the agreement did not influence Future Link's decision to file the complaint. Future Link then withdrew its complaint and moved to terminate the investigation, which the ALJ granted. The ITC terminated the investigation when no petition for review was filed. Realtek petitioned the ITC to review the ALJ's order denying sanctions, but the ITC declined and terminated the sanctions proceeding.Realtek appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, seeking an order for Future Link to pay a fine to the Commission. The Federal Circuit concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to hear Realtek's appeal, as the Commission's decision on sanctions was not a "final determination" under 19 U.S.C. § 1337(c) that would affect the exclusion or non-exclusion of articles from entry. The court dismissed the appeal, noting that jurisdiction over such matters likely lies with the district courts, not the Federal Circuit. View "Realtek Semiconductor Corp. v. International Trade Commission" on Justia Law

Optis Cellular Technology, LLC, Optis Wireless Technology, LLC, PanOptis Patent Management, LLC, Unwired Planet International Limited, and Unwired Planet, LLC (collectively, “Optis”) sued Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Optis asserted that various Apple products implementing the LTE standard infringed five of its standard-essential patents. The jury found Apple infringed certain claims of the asserted patents and awarded $506,200,000 in damages. Apple moved for a new trial, arguing the jury did not hear evidence regarding Optis’s obligation to license the patents on FRAND terms. The district court granted a new trial on damages, and the jury awarded $300,000,000 in the retrial.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court vacated both the infringement and second damages judgments, remanding for a new trial on infringement and damages. The court dismissed Optis’s cross-appeal to reinstate the original damages verdict. The court also reversed the district court’s findings that claims 6 and 7 of the ’332 patent are not directed to an abstract idea under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and that claim 1 of the ’557 patent does not invoke 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6. The court affirmed the district court’s construction of claim 8 of the ’833 patent. Additionally, the court concluded that the district court abused its discretion by admitting the Apple-Qualcomm settlement agreement and related expert testimony into evidence.The Federal Circuit held that the single infringement question on the verdict form violated Apple’s right to a unanimous verdict, as it did not ensure all jurors agreed on the same patent being infringed. The court also determined that claims 6 and 7 of the ’332 patent are directed to an abstract idea and remanded for further analysis under Alice step two. The court found that “selecting unit” in claim 1 of the ’557 patent invokes § 112 ¶ 6 and remanded for further proceedings. View "OPTIS WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY, LLC v. APPLE INC. " on Justia Law

TWD, LLC filed a complaint against Grunt Style LLC in 2018, alleging trademark infringement. Both companies sell goods with military-related trademarks. Grunt Style counterclaimed, asserting TWD was infringing on its prior trademark. The district court granted Grunt Style's motion for partial summary judgment in April 2022, dismissing all of TWD's claims. The case was reassigned to Judge Hunt, who held a bench trial in 2024 and ordered TWD to pay Grunt Style $739,500. Grunt Style moved to amend the judgment to include interest and permanent injunctive relief, which the district court granted in January 2025.TWD filed a notice of appeal from the amended judgment, which was docketed as appeal No. 25-1305. During a preliminary review, the Seventh Circuit identified a potential jurisdictional issue because the district court's judgment did not explicitly address TWD's counterclaims. The court directed the parties to address whether the judgment was deficient. TWD filed an amended notice of appeal, which was docketed as a new appeal, No. 25-1341. The district court later issued an indicative ruling, signaling its intent to correct the judgment if the case was remanded.The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit agreed with the district court's solution and decided to remand the case for correction of the clerical mistake in the judgment. The court retained jurisdiction over the appeal and dismissed the second appeal (No. 25-1341) as unnecessary, without collecting an additional fee. The court emphasized the importance of clear and complete judgments to avoid jurisdictional issues and ensure appellate jurisdiction is clear. View "Grunt Style LLC v TWD, LLC" on Justia Law

United Services Automobile Association (USAA) owns U.S. Patent No. 10,402,638, which is directed to remote check deposit technology. The patent describes a system where a customer uses a personal mobile device to take a picture of a check and transmit the image to a financial institution. The system includes steps for error checking and optical character recognition (OCR) to ensure the check image is of sufficient quality. USAA sued PNC Bank, N.A. for infringement of this and other patents.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted USAA’s motion for summary judgment, finding the asserted claims patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court denied PNC’s cross-motion for summary judgment. A jury trial followed, where the jury found no invalidity and that PNC had infringed USAA’s patents. PNC appealed the district court’s summary judgment ruling on § 101.The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case and reversed the district court’s decision. The Federal Circuit held that the asserted claim of the ’638 patent is directed to the abstract idea of depositing a check using a handheld mobile device and does not contain an inventive concept sufficient to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. The court concluded that the claim recites routine data collection and analysis steps implemented by a generic device, which is insufficient for patent eligibility under § 101. Consequently, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment and did not address USAA’s cross-appeal regarding damages testimony. View "UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION v. PNC BANK N.A. " on Justia Law