Legal issues, law and regulations concerning the world of IP.
On 16 April 2025, the District Court of The Hague in the Netherlands handed down a decision relating to the complex issue of trade mark exhaustion in the context of parallel trade disputes.
Read MoreEarlier this year, Chief Judge Boalick issued guidance on the USPTO’s recission of “Interim Procedure for Discretionary Denials in AIA Post-Grant Proceedings with Parallel District Court Litigation,” explaining how the Fintiv factors should be addressed going forward. Shortly after, Acting Director Stewart issued a memorandum titled “Interim Processes for PTAB Workload Management” that provided additional non-Fintiv discretionary factors that should be assessed to determine whether discretionary denial of an IPR petition is appropriate.
Read MoreThe intellectual property rights owner of The Lord of the Rings franchise, Middle-earth Enterprises, LLC (Middle-earth Enterprises) has renewed its pursuit against Lord of the Fries IP Pty Ltd (Lord of the Fries), having recently appealed the Australian Trade Marks Office’s decision allowing the registration of the word mark LORD OF THE filed by Lord of the Fries. We discuss below the key issues in dispute in the trade mark opposition filed by Middle-earth Enterprises.1
Read MoreThe Federal Circuit recently resolved a split among the district courts whether patent infringement defendants who bring inter partes review (IPR) challenges are estopped from raising new prior art challenges in a co-pending district court litigation. While some district courts had earlier found estoppel to have broad effect, and thus prevent challenges based on products on sale or public use, the Federal Circuit’s decision means that estoppel is limited only to challenges based on patents or printed publications, opening the door to use patents and publications to provide evidence of what subject matter was “on sale” or “in public use.”
Read MoreThe Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), a United Kingdom (UK) not-for-profit, has announced that it is developing a Generative AI (GenAI) Training Licence, and is hoping to publish the licence in the third quarter of 2025.
Read MoreOn 19 January 2025 the USPTO enacted a new Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) size fee. A new IDS size fee, codified under 37 C.F.R. 1.17(v), is accrued for any pending application when the number of cumulative references cited by the applicant exceeds each of 50, 100, and 200 references (hereinafter, “IDS Size Fee”).
Read MoreIn Dei Gratia Pty Ltd v Commissioner of Patents [2024] FCA 1145 (Dei Gratia), the Federal Court of Australia dismissed an appeal by Dei Gratia and confirmed the decision of the Commissioner of Patents to refuse the patent application for ‘last mile logistics’. The claimed invention purported to facilitate the delivery of goods from the last point in a distribution chain to end consumers. By selecting a preferred local outlet, customers would be able to overcome delivery issues such as the need to be at home at a specific time and the protection of perishable goods that have been left at doors in high temperatures.
Read MoreFinding against Zoetis, the Full Federal Court held that Zoetis’ three patent applications relating to pig vaccines were invalid due to the failure to disclose the best method.
Read MoreOn 20 March 2025, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) designated as “Informative” the majority opinion in the Decision Denying Institution in IPR2024-00952, a decision originally entered on December 13, 2024.
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