Please join us on Monday, March 14, 2022 at 12:00 pm, where we will discuss the concept of Analogous Prior Art in Obviousness rejections, as well as delve into the issues in the Moderna-NIH conflict over Covid vaccine patent rights. Please see Analogous Prior Art slides here. Please see Moderna-NIH slides here, and patent filing [...]
On Monday, February 14, 2022 (Happy Valentine's Day!), SoCal IP Law Group partner Jonathan Pearce will present on several patent and trademark cases involving "exceptional case" determinations. Our firm has handled a few litigation matters involving potential or actual exceptional cases recently. As a result, we have some experience in these determinations and thought them [...]
On Monday, February 7, 2022 at 1:00 pm, Marina Lang will present on recent caselaw dealing with Generic trademarks. Eleven years into a dispute, a federal court ruled that the "Pretzel Crisps" brand is a generic. See the opinion. Ms. Lang will discuss the "not so simple" legal standard that is required for a [...]
On Monday, January 31, 2022 at 1:00 pm, we will discuss the following cases. The first, from the Supreme Court, Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc., 141 S. Ct. 2298 (2021) (Justice Kagan), revisits the assignor estoppel doctrine. “That doctrine, rooted in an idea of fair dealing, limits an inventor’s ability to assign a patent to [...]
On Monday, January 10, 2022 at 1:00 pm, Jonathan Pearce will re-present a recent presentation to the Video Game Bar Association made by himself and fellow practitioner Allison Rothman. Mr. Pearce and Ms. Rothman previously made this presentation during the VGBA's annual summit to provide its members with an update on the state of intellectual property [...]
Please join us 9/27/2021 at 1:00pm for a discussion: United States Patent and Trademark Office Crackdown on Scammers. For years, owners of United States Trademark Registrations have been plagued by scam letters requesting payments to renews trademark registrations. Though trademark registrations must be renewed, these letters did not come from the actual USPTO but a [...]
The FENDI Decision is out! After 5 long years, the Shanghai High Court issued its final judgement in the case of Fendi v. Yi Lang. Defendant Yi Lang (no relative of this week's presenter, SoCal IP Partner Marina Lang) can no longer operate his "Fendi" stores in China, stocked with parallel goods. We will discuss [...]
This week we have a pair of IP cases about marking. First, a patent case, Lubby Holdings v Chung, where a vape device company should have marked its products with the patent number. Second, a trademark case, Piano Factory v Schiedmayer Celesta, in which a piano vendor marked its cheap pianos with a fancy name. [...]
Please join us on Monday, August 23 at 1:00 pm, when Mark Goldstein will lead a discussion of two recent cases, one addressing whether patents are invalid for claiming abstract ideas and the other about asserting trademark infringement resulting from the use of internet keywords that are the trademarks of another. (Access the cases by [...]
On Monday, August 12, Michael Harris will conduct a discussion of two cases, one dealing with the prior art status of a printed publication, and the other about unclean hands as a defense to trademark infringement. The 2021, Ninth Circuit case of Metal Jeans, Inc. v. Metal Sport, Inc. (case here) is the unclean hands case. [...]