The Supreme Court denied certiorari in a DNA-sequencing patent malpractice case that highlights a structural problem in patent law: inventors can be bound by litigation outcomes through claim preclusion while courts simultaneously hold that no attorney-client duty was owed to them.
The Supreme Court unanimously reversed a billion-dollar verdict against Cox Communications and held that an internet service provider is contributorily liable for user copyright infringement only when it induces the infringement or sells a service tailored to infringement. Mere knowledge that subscr
The Supreme Court unanimously held that an award of “defendant’s profits” under the Lanham Act is limited to the profits of the named defendant entity and may not include profits of legally separate affiliated companies, unless those affiliates are alter egos or otherwise liable.
The Supreme Court held that the Lanham Act’s restriction on registering marks that include a living person’s name without their consent is a content-based but viewpoint-neutral restriction that does not violate the First Amendment.
The Supreme Court held 6–3 that a copyright plaintiff who timely files under the discovery rule may recover damages for infringing acts occurring more than three years before filing, rejecting the argument that a separate three-year damages lookback window limits recovery.
The Supreme Court held that the Lanham Act’s trademark infringement provisions apply only to infringing use in commerce that occurs within the United States; foreign conduct is not actionable even if infringing products ultimately enter the U.S. market.
The Supreme Court held that when a defendant uses an allegedly parodic mark as a source identifier — as an actual trademark — the Rogers test for expressive works does not apply, and the ordinary likelihood-of-confusion analysis governs, with parody as a relevant but not dispositive factor.
The Supreme Court held 7-2 that the Andy Warhol Foundation’s commercial licensing of Warhol’s silkscreen portrait of Prince — based on a photograph by Lynn Goldsmith — was not fair use, because the commercial licensing purpose closely tracked the photographer’s own licensing market
The Supreme Court held 6-3 that a copyright owner’s failure to know that a single registration application could not cover both published and unpublished works did not necessarily constitute a ‘knowing’ inaccuracy that voids the registration — allowing courts to overlook good-faith
The Supreme Court held 5-4 that assignor estoppel — the doctrine preventing a patent inventor who has assigned their patent from later claiming the patent is invalid — remains a valid doctrine, but only applies when there is a direct conflict between the invalidity position and what the inventor war