Imagine That IP Law Blog

The United States Supreme Court’s decision in TC Heartland jolted the IP law community by displacing long-standing Federal Circuit precedent and leaving a divide amongst district court judges, as well as a bevy of unanswered questions.¹ Since TC Heartland, two more decisions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit help clarify the landscape for patent litigators. Additionally, a study from Lex Machina further outlines the shifting horizon of forum shopping.

In 1990, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided in VE Holdings v. Johnson Gas ... Read More ›

THE COLLABORATIVE SEARCH PILOT PROGRAM

In an attempt to expedite and promote the quality of patent application examination, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began a Collaborative Search Pilot (CSP) program in partnership with the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). The program is designed to provide USPTO examiners with the best prior art by collaborating with examiners at the JPO and KIPO that are examining corresponding Japanese and Korean patent applications.

In the initial CSP program, examiners shared and ... Read More ›

Every so often, intellectual property law leaps from the backrooms of scientific exploration, labs ripe with technological advancement, or the worn desks of learned men and women, into social consciousness via an unwitting member of pop culture’s elite. Celebrities, the cult of personality that surrounds them, and the brands they establish, are still subject to the same rules of intellectual property law as less-known inventors, authors and developers. The nature of being in the public eye, and ownership of personal brands, can sometimes prove headache-inducing for the ... Read More ›