Industry News

CARR Law Firm PLLC - Intellectual Property Lawyers in Dallas, Texas

Case Summaries

[05/24] In re Hyon
In a case involving a patent on Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene for use in artificial joints, a patent examiner's rejection of all claims of a reissue application is affirmed, where the claims would have been obvious in light of the prior art, as substantial evidence supported the finding that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the early crosslinking step of one earlier patent with the process of another earlier patent to obtain the enhanced properties disclosed by the earlier patent that result from crosslinking prior to deformation.

[05/22] ASCAP v. MobiTV, Inc.
In a dispute over the royalty owed for a blanket public performance license for music in the ASCAP repertory that was embodied in television and radio content to be delivered to viewers and listeners using mobile telephones, the district court's rate formulation and resulting royalty award are affirmed, where: 1) it appropriately used as a revenue base the wholesale price for the musical content; 2) there was no requirement that the district court explicitly engage in a testing of the fee resulting from its formula; and 3) the district court did not err by construing the license to exclude content acquired by others but streamed to customers using the appellee's back-end technology infrastructure.

[05/17] In re Baxter International, Inc.
In a case involving a patent on hemodialysis machines, a decision of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences affirming the examiner's rejections of claims for obviousness is affirmed, where: 1) substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that prior art disclosed limitations of a claim; and 2) the Board did not erroneously construe a term in several other claims, and so substantial evidence supported the rejections of those claims.

[05/14] Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
In a patent infringement action brought by Apple against Samsung, the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction is affirmed with respect to three of the four patents at issue, where: 1) as to two iPhone design patents and a patent on a "bounce-back" feature, the district court correctly determined that there would be no irreparable harm to Apple from Samsung's infringement; but 2) the district court erred in concluding that there was likely to be a substantial question as to the validity of an iPad design patent, so remand was necessary for findings on other questions bearing on injunctive relief.

[05/14] Gaylord v. US
In a copyright infringement action by the holder of copyright on statues that are part of the Korean War Memorial, brought against the U.S. Postal Service, which issued stamps bearing a photograph of the statutes, the judgment of the Court of Federal Claims awarding the plaintiff $5,000 is vacated and the case remanded, where the Claims Court incorrectly limited the plaintiff's damages to the Postal Service’s highest past license payment and denied prejudgment interest.

[05/11] Banco Popular de Puerto Rico v. Asociacion de Compositores y Editores de Musica Latinoamericana
In consolidated copyright infringement cases, the First Circuit holds that: 1) the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing a music publisher and its affiliate to litigate copyright infringement claims as to four songs used in live Christmas concerts produced by a bank, as those songs were not part of a settlement agreement; 2) the evidence of infringement was sufficient; 3) the district court did not err by twice denying the bank the opportunity to introduce certain evidence; 4) the district court correctly found that a publisher owned a song and that parties infringed its rights by retroactively licensing the performance rights to that song, and the award of damages was proper; and 5) the bank was not entitled to an offset or return of the monies it paid in performance fees for two songs.

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