Intellectual Property Archives

Oct 10, 2018

HP Petitions Supreme Court on Patent Eligibility: An Issue of Law or Fact?

HP, Inc. has filed with the Supreme Court its long-awaited petition in the highly publicized HP v. Berkheimer patent case, seeking certiorari review on the issue of whether patent eligibility analysis under Alice/Mayo is an issue of law to be decided by the Court, or an issue of fact, as was held by the Federal Circuit in the case below. If the Federal Circuit’s opinion stands, then the question of patent eligibility will likely become more difficult (than under previous case law) to adjudicate on a motion to dismiss or even on a motion for summary judgment. In the underlying… Read more

Oct 3, 2018

Federal Circuit Reverses Apple’s $500 Million Patent Infringement Liability

Not all decisions from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit make national news, but last week the appellate court threw out a half a billion dollar win for the patent licensing wing of the University of Wisconsin called WARF – Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. WARF’s patent covered how computer processors execute program instructions, in a way to speed up processing. While a Wisconsin jury found the patent to be valid and infringed by Apple, the Federal Circuit agreed on validity, but found the jury had no reasonable basis for its verdict that Apple infringed. Over the course of… Read more

Sep 25, 2018

Bruce McDonald Appointed to IP Court Advisory Council

Undeterred by tensions between the United States and Russia, SGR partner Bruce McDonald continues to attend meetings of the Advisory Council to the Intellectual Property Court of the Russian Federation, established in 2013, in his capacity as the only American and one of only four Westerners on the 67-member body. Mr. McDonald was appointed to the Intellectual Property Court Advisory Council after delivering a presentation at the Russian Supreme Commercial Court in April 2013, in Russian, comparing and contrasting the American experience involving the separation of powers in constitutional governance with the separation of judicial power in the Russian judicial… Read more

Sep 19, 2018

Trademark Enforcement Hampered by Disappearance of WHOIS Data

The biggest recent development involving ICANN results from the general data protection regulation known as GDPR and the regulation which became fully effective on May 25, 2018. Due to the regulation, ICANN decided to require domain name registries to remove public access to the contact names and details of domain name registrants. This action was implemented to protect the personal data and privacy of domain name registrants under the GDPR. The decision to limit data previously provided by the WHOIS service has had a severe negative impact on a number of interests. It has raised issues relating to security on… Read more

Sep 12, 2018

Is Fair Use Still Fair?

Photographers should always include copyright notice on their works to avoid copyright infringement

A recent decision from the Eastern District of Virginia took an expansive view on the fair use defense to copyright infringement that calls into question the scope of copyright protection for photographers. In Brammer v. Violent Hues Productions, LLC, a photographer sued a festival organizer for copyright infringement based on using the photographer’s time-lapse photo of a Washington, D.C. neighborhood in its website. The organizer claimed that it found the picture online and did not see any indication that someone claimed copyright in the picture and, therefore, believed that it was making use of a publically available photograph. The organizer… Read more

Sep 4, 2018

Intellectual Property Implications in Business Decisions

As a business owner, it is important to research any intellectual property concerns before proceeding with an idea, especially when it concerns the intellectual property rights of well-known companies in the entertainment industry. On August 29, 2018, the United States District Court for the Central District of California granted a preliminary injunction to Disney that barred Redbox from selling individual download codes that were initially included within combo packs. Disney sells combo packs which include a DVD and/or Blu-ray disc version of a movie as well as a piece of paper that has a download Code that can be redeemed… Read more

Aug 30, 2018

Ninth Circuit Holds Mere “Remastering” of Pre-1972 Sound Recording Does Not Entitle It to Federal Copyright Protection

Record on Record Player: Copyright Protection

On August 20, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling that digital remastering of pre-1972 sound recordings creates a new sound recording entitled to copyright protection.[1] In so holding, the Ninth Circuit rejected the Defendant radio broadcasters’ claims that, because the pre-1972 sound recordings had been remastered from analog sound recordings into digital formats, they were entitled to federal copyright protection. The Plaintiffs, a group of record companies that own sound recordings of classic artists such as The Everly Brothers and Al Green, filed a class action lawsuit against CBS Corporation and CBS Radio Inc.,… Read more

Aug 23, 2018

It’s Time for Something New

Here at SGR, we like to keep our clients and friends up-to-date on recent developments in the law, as well as on recent news from our firm. As part of this effort, we publish periodic newsletters and blogs on a wide range of legal topics. Our goal is to keep our clients and contacts informed on current legal trends, and also to keep them posted on events and other activities taking place at our firm. As part of this effort, we’ve been publishing our Intellectual Property (IP) newsletter (entitled “The SGR Intellectual Property Brain Trust”) for many years, and we hope… Read more

Aug 15, 2018

National Grange Again Victorious in the Eastern District of California

On August 13, 2018, Judge Shubb of the Eastern District of California awarded sweeping relief to SGR client the National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry (the “Grange”), the nation’s oldest agricultural fraternal organization. For years, California has been the epicenter of a heated battle between the Grange and the former leader of its chartered California chapter. The court’s award of summary judgment, the latest of a string of victories in favor of the Grange, confirms that the history and goodwill of the California State Grange, as well as copyrighted content produced by the organization, is the intellectual… Read more

Jul 16, 2018

SGR Partner Bruce McDonald Joined Leading Representatives of the Russian Pharmaceutical Industry

SGR Partner Bruce McDonald with Leading Representatives of the Russian Pharmaceutical Industry

St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, St. Petersburg, Russia, May 17, 2018 (L to R) Dmitry Chagin, Chairman, Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers of the Eurasian Economic Union; Anna Guseva, Partner, Ernst & Young; Zakhar Galant, Russian Ministry of Health; Vitaliy Kastalskiy, Managing Partner, AK Patent Group; and Bruce McDonald, Partner, Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP On May 17, 2018, SGR partner Bruce McDonald joined leading representatives of the Russian pharmaceutical industry at the invitation of the Russian Ministry of Health for a discussion of legislative and policy proposals by the government calling for a restriction in the scope of patent protection for pharmaceutical… Read more