IP & Technology Law Trends
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Supreme Court Grants Certiorari in Game-Changing Trademark Appeals
Continuing to feed its appetite for trademark rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently granted petitions for certiorari of two Second Circuit decisions implicating trademark law. The first case could change the burden of proof for recovering an i...
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Supreme Court Finds “Scandalous” Trademark Rule Unconstitutional
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the U.S. Trademark Act’s section 2(a) provision precluding registration of “immoral” or “scandalous” trademarks violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ruling came in the case of Iancu v. Bru...
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Supreme Court Holds that Trademark Licensee Retains Rights After Rejection of License by Licensor in Bankruptcy
In a long-awaited, nearly unanimous opinion written by Justice Kagan, resolving a circuit split described in our earlier blog post, the Supreme Court reversed the First Circuit and held that rejection by the licensor of a trademark license under Sect...
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U.S. Supreme Court Makes Clear: Copyright Registration Required to Sue for Infringement
When it comes to protecting creative works, copyright law in theory offers the most instant form of protection. Under the Copyright Act of 1976, a copyright author gains exclusive rights in the work immediately upon its creation. 17 U.S.C. § 106. N...
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Supreme Court to Take Up Protection of Confidential Information Provided to the Government: Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media
On January 11, the United States Supreme Court announced it accepted the Food Marketing Institute’s cert petition to review the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Food Marketing Institute v. Argus Leader Media. This represents the latest development toward...
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Supreme Court Denies Cert in de Havilland Case
In early November, we reported that the U.S. Supreme Court was considering whether to hear Olivia de Havilland’s appeal of the dismissal of her right-of-publicity and false-light privacy claims against the producers of the popular television miniseri...
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