The Supreme Court issued a recent decision that represents good news for copyright registrants. In Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, L. P., 595 U.S. ___ (February 24, 2022), the Court held that a minor error of law by a copyright registrant did not invalidate a copyright registration.

Myanmar has been identified as a potential source of low-cost manufacturing since at least 2014. Unfortunately, a recent coup and the COVID crisis have threatened the country’s status as an emerging economy. 

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that a patent applicant can invalidate his or her patent by sending certain types of letters prior to the filing date of a patent application.

A recent decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is the second-highest-ranking court that decides patent cases in the U.S., indicates that patent applicants must take extra care when claiming ranges in their patent applications.

The United States issues three different types of patents: utility patents, design patents and plant patents. Utility patents cover useful or functional inventions. Design patents cover ornamental designs. Plant patents cover certain types of asexually reproduced plants.

I discussed inventor Gilbert Hyatt and his on-going litigation with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) regarding his substantial patent portfolio in my Aug. 11, 2016, blog post. He is the inventor of a single-chip microcomputer in the 1960s and reportedly licensed his invention for more than $150 million. He is the named inventor on at least 70 patents.

The second prong concerns personal jurisdiction, which means that the accused infringer must establish that a federal district court has the authority to exercise its power over the defendant (i.e., the patent owner). This can be established by proving that the defendant had certain minimum contacts with the state in which the court sat.

A patent owner who attempts to inform a potential infringer about his or her patent rights runs the risk that the accused infringer might decide to file a declaratory judgment action. Through such an action, the accused infringer can seek to have a court declare that the accused infringer is not infringing the patent-at-issue. Alternatively, the accused infringer might seek to have the court declare that the patent is invalid.

More than a century ago, Supreme Court Justice Joseph P. Bradley observed...

The most-recent intellectual-property decision by the Supreme Court concerned the issue of assignor estoppel.