Summary Judgement in Seattle: Inventorship and Noninfringement without an Expert Report

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2023. As we start the third decade of SoCal IP Law Group, we have some court decisions on fairly fundamental issues of patent law and procedure.  In Plastipak v Premium Waters, the Federal Circuit (J Stark) vacated and remanded on whether the plaintiff had sufficient rights to sue for infringement. [...]

By |2023-01-08T19:12:27-08:00January 8th, 2023|Uncategorized|0 Comments

IPR Procedure: motion to exclude evidence, and motion to terminate

Two cases of interest in IPR practice, Provisur Technologies, Inc. v. Weber, Inc., and Polaris Innovations, Ltd. v. Brent. Both of these are precedential opinions of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.In Provisur, the PTAB invalidated claims directed to classifying slices or a portion cut from a food product according to an optical [...]

By |2022-10-23T22:08:52-07:00October 23rd, 2022|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Ninth Circuit Rules in Favor of Yoga Icon Lululemon in a Reverse Trademark Confusion Case over their Align Pants

Vancouver-based Lululemon ("Lulu"), founded in 1998, is famously known for their boujee yoga-inspired activewear. Industry competitor Aliign Activation Wear (“Aliign”) filed suit against Lulu in the Central District of California back in mid-2020, primarily alleging that Lulu was infringing its Aliign trademark, which Aliign said it has been using since 2011. You see, Lulu rolled [...]

Less Whack in Waco; Echos of 2015

Summer time and the living is easy, so I’m a bit delayed in this week’s post. Apologies. In this week’s post, I highlight shifts in the patent litigation environment in Texas. The Eastern District of Texas, especially Marshall and Tyler, used to be the top venue choice for patent owners who wanted a fast path [...]

Federal Circuit – Our Views of the Bench

Who are the people in your neighborhood? Our neighborhood includes the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CAFC currently has 19 sitting judges. Here's a list of the judges with links to their bios. The judges have diverse and interesting backgrounds. The bench includes a Chief Judge. Ever wonder how the chief judge [...]

By |2022-05-06T09:38:37-07:00May 5th, 2022|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Boardside Chats from the PTAB

The USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) handles five kinds of cases: 1. Appeals by patent applicants when an examiner has rejected their application at least twice.2. Appeals by patent owners in reexaminations3. Inter parte reviews (IPRs)4. Post Grant Reviews (PGRs)5. Covered Business Method Patent Reviews (CBMs) In support of the PTAB's public outreach [...]

By |2022-03-17T15:11:50-07:00March 17th, 2022|Uncategorized, Prosecution Appeal, Training|0 Comments

Pushing Out the Boundaries of IPR Estoppel

In unrelated opinions published one week apart, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has pushed out the boundaries of IPR estoppel. IPR estoppel, like many patent law issues, seems esoteric, but it can have tremendous economic impact. Though estoppel is usually an issue of equity, well within a judge's sense of fairness, IPR [...]

By |2022-02-23T16:55:45-08:00February 17th, 2022|Uncategorized|0 Comments

Colors as Trademarks, and more on False Trademark Declarations

On Monday, December 20, 2021, Steve Sereboff will lead a discussion of an older decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) about single color trademarks, and about a more recent decision by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) providing more guidance on its false trademark declaration jurisprudence. In re Cook [...]

By |2021-12-20T10:07:17-08:00December 20th, 2021|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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