The Supreme Court held unanimously that a plaintiff in a trademark infringement case may recover the defendant’s profits under 15 U.S.C. §1117(a) without proving that the infringement was willful.
The Supreme Court held 7-2 that § 314(d)’s bar on judicial review of IPR institution decisions extends to determinations about the § 315(b) one-year time bar — meaning courts cannot review whether the PTAB incorrectly concluded that a petition was timely filed within the statutory one-year per
The Supreme Court unanimously held that Congress lacked constitutional authority to abrogate state sovereign immunity for copyright infringement under the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act, leaving rights holders without a federal damages remedy when states infringe their copyrights.
The Supreme Court held that the Lanham Act’s prohibition on registering marks that are immoral or scandalous constitutes an unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction on speech under the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court held that the federal government is not a ‘person’ eligible to petition for inter partes review, post-grant review, or covered business method review under the America Invents Act.
The Supreme Court unanimously held that copyright registration “occurs” when the Copyright Office registers a claim — not when the applicant files — meaning copyright holders must wait for the Office to act before they can sue for infringement.
The Supreme Court held that the AIA preserved pre-AIA law on the ‘on sale’ bar: a confidential commercial sale of an invention more than one year before the patent application triggers the bar, even if the invention’s details remain secret.
The Supreme Court held that a patent holder can recover lost foreign profits as damages when a domestic act of infringement under § 271(f) caused those foreign profits to be lost.
The Supreme Court held 7-2 that inter partes review does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment — because patents are public franchises granted by the government, which may reclaim or modify them through an executive agency proceeding without a jury trial, upholding the America Invents Act
The Supreme Court held 5-4 that when the USPTO institutes an inter partes review, it must adjudicate every claim challenged in the petition — rejecting the PTO’s practice of instituting IPR on only some of the challenged claims and leaving other claims unreviewable.