• Posts Tagged ‘collateral estoppel’

    Estopped By A Wrong Decision

    by  • December 5, 2022 • patent • 0 Comments

    The Federal Circuit issued two companion decisions involving the same patent license arrangement, one that affected at least three district court decisions. Uniloc USA, Inc., Uniloc Luxembourg S.A., and Uniloc 2017 LLC, which I’ll just refer to as “Uniloc,” sued Apple, Motorola Mobility and Google for patent infringement. However, Uniloc had received funding from...

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    Oh, Never Mind

    by  • April 25, 2016 • patent • 0 Comments

    When I started writing this post I was going to write about a case that had sussed out that there are different legal thresholds for determining ownership for purposes of prosecuting a patent versus what may be challenged by the PTO in an appeal of a rejection. But it turns out the conclusion was...

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    It’s So Hard to Value Trademarks

    by  • July 7, 2014 • trademark • 1 Comment

    It always gets interesting when an owner has incentive to make inconsistent claims about the same intangible asset in different venues. Say, for example, where you claim that copyrights are part of your deceased spouse’s estate to keep them out of bankruptcy and then try to claim you are the owner for purposes of...

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    Co-ownership Is Not Privity

    by  • November 20, 2012 • copyright • 0 Comments

    A co-owner of a copyrighted work sues for infringement of the work. The court holds that the defendant had been granted a license by another co-owner, not a party, and therefore there was no infringement. The non-party co-owner then sues for copyright infringement in a new suit. Collateral estoppel or not? “Not,” according to...

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    Divorce Entitled to Full Faith and Credit

    by  • August 11, 2010 • patent

    Co-inventor Mundi Fumokong was married to Fonda Whitfield when he filed for two related patent applications.  In California, all property acquired by a married person during marriage is presumed to be community property, including patent applications.  Fumokong and Whitfield later filed for a  “quickie” divorce (those are the court’s words), more formally called a...

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