Intellectual Property News and Reports

Held: Section 411(b) does not distinguish between a mistake of law and a mistake of fact; lack of either factual or legal knowledge can excuse an inaccuracy in a copyright registration under §411(b)(1)(A)’s safe harbor. Pp. 4–9. (a) The Copyright... Read more →

Held: Assignor estoppel is well grounded in centuries-old fairness principles, and the Federal Circuit was right to uphold it. But assignor estoppel applies only when the assignor’s claim of invalidity contradicts explicit or implicit representations he made in assigning the... Read more →

Held: The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded. 941 F. 3d 1320, vacated and remanded. THE CHIEF JUSTICE delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, concluding that the unreviewable authority wielded by... Read more →

Google’s copying of the Java SE API, which included only those lines of code that were needed to allow programmers to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, was a fair use of that material... Read more →

A term styled “generic.com” is a generic name for a class of goods or services only if the term has that meaning to consumers. Pp. 6–14. (a) Whether a compound term is generic turns on whether that term, taken as... Read more →

Held: Because Marcel’s 2011 Action challenged different conduct—and raised different claims—from the 2005 Action, Marcel cannot preclude Lucky Brand from raising new defenses. Pp. 6–12. (a) This case asks whether so-called “defense preclusion” is a valid application of res judicata:... Read more →

Inter partes review is an administrative process that permits a patent challenger to ask the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office to reconsider the validity of earlier granted patent claims. For inter partes review to proceed, the agency must agree... Read more →

A plaintiff in a trademark infringement suit is not required to show that a defendant willfully infringed the plaintiff’s trademark as a precondition to a profits award. The Lanham Act provision governing remedies for trademark violations, §1117(a), makes a showing... Read more →

Held: Congress lacked authority to abrogate the States’ immunity from copyright infringement suits in the CRCA. Pp. 4–17. (a) In general, a federal court may not hear a suit brought by any person against a nonconsenting State. But such suits... Read more →

SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. The PTO cannot recover the salaries of its legal personnel under §145. Pp. 3–10. (a) The “American Rule”—the bedrock principle that “[e]ach litigant pays his own attorney’s fees, win or lose,... Read more →