IP & Technology Law Trends
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It’s Not Always Sunny in Philadelphia: CertainTeed v. BIPV
In CertainTeed v. BIPV, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has given us a good reminder that patents (or patent applications) and trade secrets don’t mix well, and also weighed in on the confounding question of...
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Supreme Court Squeezes Patents: TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods & Impression Products v. Lexmark
In a pair of important decisions over the last week, the Supreme Court again changed the patent protection landscape (and again overruled the Federal Circuit). In TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands, LLC, the Supreme Court took on the issue...
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What’s in Your Privacy Policy? New Oregon Law Requires Accuracy
On May 25, 2017, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed into law H.B. 2090. This new law will make materially inaccurate claims related to the collection, use, disclosure, maintenance, and disposal of consumer data an unlawful trade practice subject to en...
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Portland Band The Slants Singing a Happy Tune After the Supreme Court Unanimously Holds That the Disparagement Clause Violates the First Amendment
Background
Yesterday, six months after hearing oral argument (and nearly six years after Simon Tam filed his trademark application for "THE SLANTS"), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's en b...
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USPTO Switches Gears on Registration of Disparaging Marks, but Not on Scandalous Marks
On June 26, 2017, a week after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that the "disparagement clause" in Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment in Matal v. Tam, the U.S. Patent and...
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We Built This City on...False Advertising?
Fifty years ago, it was the “Summer of Love” in San Francisco, with Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 album “Surrealistic Pillow” providing the soundtrack. My how times have changed!
Earlier this week, the United States District Court for the Northern Dis...
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