The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (the “Federal Circuit”) issued an important ruling regarding the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (the “PTAB”) in Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew, Inc., __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. October 30, 2019). Specifically, the Federal Circuit held that the appointment process for administrative law judges violates the Appointments Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Two years ago, the Supreme Court issued an important trademark decision that concerned the intersection of the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to The Constitution and the “disparagement clause” within the Lanham Act.

It is well known that the U.S. federal government’s Executive Branch administers the U.S. patent system and that it provides relief to aggrieved patent owners through its courts.

The Supreme Court settled a longstanding issue in trademark/bankruptcy law earlier this year.

The Supreme Court issued two decisions that specifically addressed copyright law on March 4, 2019.

Now that my series on intellectual-property (IP) damages is complete, I would like to discuss the latest Supreme Court IP decisions. The Supreme Court issued two decisions that specifically addressed copyright law on March 4, 2019. This blog will discuss the decision relating to copyright registration requirements.

The determination of damages for trademark infringement or unfair competition is not as uniform as in patent cases or copyright cases because the enforcement of trademarks can be governed by federal substantive law, state law or both.

Part 2 covers infringer's profits and statutory damages.

The determination of copyright damages is uniform more throughout the United States than the determination of trade-secret damages because substantive copyright law is federal law exclusively.

This is a continuation of part 3, which can be found here.