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Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Eric Goldman
July 25, 2018

[ed notes: copyright, trademark, patent, all three]

The plaintiff owns copyright and trademark registrations in a bear logo. He claims a defendant created a similar-looking bear logo and marketed goods using that logo:

I’ll focus on the court’s treatment of plaintiffs’ claims against GoDaddy and Instagram. The court summarizes:

The Complaint’s only allegations that explicitly reference Instagram and GoDaddy are that GoDaddy provides web hosting services to X Gear and Tydlacka, and that Instagram provides an application on which X Gear and Tydlacka publish images of the infringing logo. We thus construe the Complaint to allege that Instagram and GoDaddy are contributorily liable for trademark and copyright infringement because they induced X Gear and Tydlacka’s actions.

The magistrate recommends dismissing both parties from the lawsuit:

Case citation: Franklin v. X Gear 101, 2018 WL 3528731 (S.D.N.Y. July 23, 2018).

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IP Watchdog
Michael Annis & Myers Dill
July 22, 2018
Ultimately, the jury’s large damage award might not be the lasting storyline of this case. Apple’s “victory” here shows that well-crafted design patents can offer broad protections against even slight infringements by competitors, and that a well-written design patent and a well-argued case can provide tremendous benefits to the patent owners. Given the relatively inexpensive design patent process and what will only be continued speculation as to how these damages should be calculated, a design patent remains a great defense in the face of even limited infringement by market competitors.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/07/22/design-patent-owners-alleged-infringers/id=98840/ Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post. and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com.

IP Watchdog

Steve Brachmann
April 13, 2018

Patent owner MOAEC Technologies filed suits alleging claims of patent infringement in the District of Delaware against a series of music entertainment app providers including Spotify, SoundCloud and Deezer. The suits claim that music services offered by all three defendants infringe upon a patent covering a music library collection technology invented by the founder of MOAEC… MOAEC’s suits also include language in an apparent attempt to preempt any patent validity challenges under 35 U.S.C. § 101, the basic statute governing the patentability of inventions, under the Alice/Mayo framework.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/04/13/spotify-soundcloud-deezer-music-apps-sued-infringing-patent/id=95669/

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Another day, another story of another patent troll. This one is about MOAEC Technologies LLC, a “patent licensing” company that exists solely around four related patents for a “music organizer and entertainment center.” Last month, MOAEC sued Spotify, SoundCloud and Deezer over these patents. It’s interesting that the lawsuit came just a few weeks before Spotify’s IPO, as we’ve seen a bunch of companies sued for patent infringement right before their IPOs — but it didn’t prevent Spotify’s IPO from happening.

All three lawsuits focus on US Patent 6,232,539, which is described this way:

The content in this post was found at 

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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180405/06423339567/patent-troll-sues-spotify-soundcloud-deezer-over-patent-music-organizer-entertainment-center.shtml

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IP Watchdog

Steve Brachmann
March 24, 2018

Canadian intellectual property owner BlackBerry Limited filed a suit alleging patent infringement claims against Menlo Park, CA-based social media giant Facebook Inc. in the Central District of California. BlackBerry alleges that Facebook, along with its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram, violate patents held by BlackBerry in the field of mobile messaging communications.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/03/24/blackberry-sues-facebook-instagram-whatsapp-patent-infringement/id=94984/

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IP Watchdog

Steve Brachmann
March 21, 2018

Although it’s not illegal to earn a profit, unfair business practices in the pursuit of holding a monopoly over an entire industry led to the breakup of Standard Oil, especially the rebates from railroad companies for oil shipments which substantially lowered Standard Oil’s transportation costs relative to its much smaller competitors. Recent academic research has suggested that, while the U.S. government acted appropriately to stop the cartelization of an industry, Standard Oil was engaging in typical capitalist activity in securing better deals which optimized oil shipments.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/03/21/tech-giants-maintain-dominance-copying-technologies/id=94596/

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IP Watchdog

Steve Brachmann
March 17, 2018

Portal Communications filed a suit for patent infringement against Cupertino, CA-based consumer tech giant Apple Inc. At issue in the case, which was filed in the Eastern District of Texas, are a series of patents covering natural language voice query technologies which are allegedly in use by Apple’s Siri digital personal assistant.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/03/17/portal-communications-alleges-apples-siri-willfully-infringes-natural-language-processing-patents/id=94673/

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LimeGreen IP news

FEBRUARY 27TH, 2018 BY JOE RAFFETTO, CARY ADICKMAN AND SCOTT HUGHES

On February 23, 2018, in a much-anticipated decision, the PTAB ruled that tribal sovereign immunity could not be used to shield certain Allergan Inc. (“Allergan”) patents from review in a number of IPRs. Allergan had assigned its patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (the “Tribe”) on September 8, 2017, one week before hearing in the IPRs. Under an arrangement between Allergan and the Tribe, the Tribe granted Allergan an exclusive license back to the patents and received royalty payments in return. The Tribe then moved to terminate the IPRs, urging that its sovereign immunity prevented the PTAB from issuing an invalidity opinion.

The PTAB issued its 42-page decision this past Friday denying the motion, finding that the Tribe did not show that tribal sovereign immunity applies in IPRs.

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IP Watchdog

John M. Rogitz
March 7, 2018

On February 22, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a non-precedential decision in Google, LLC v. At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Trust (2016-2727, 2016-2729). In its decision, the Federal Circuit affirmed two inter partes review (IPR) decisions and found for Google’s opponent, At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Trust… The patents at issue were U.S. Patent No. 6,286,045 and U.S. Patent No. 6,014,698, both of which deal with technology involving caching Internet advertising banners locally at a device for quicker loading of a webpage the second time the page is requested.

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The content in this post was found at https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/03/07/google-opponent-wins-ipr-battle/id=94503/

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The content in this post was found at  https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/blackberry-sues-facebook-arguing-it-owns-basic-messaging-concepts/
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