• Posts Tagged ‘exclusive license’

    When Is It a License?

    by  • August 20, 2018 • trademark • 0 Comments

    When reviewing a settlement agreement, I often ponder the parts where it says something like “Party B agrees not to infringe the trademark in the future.” The agreement doesn’t need it; whether you say it or not Party B isn’t allowed to break the law. I suppose adding the language gives you a breach...

    Read more →

    Not Enough Ownership

    by  • January 29, 2018 • copyright • 0 Comments

    Defendant Lingfu Zhang was accused of downloading the movie Fathers & Daughters via BitTorrent. Plaintiff Fathers & Daughters Nevada, LLC was the author and registered copyright owner of the film and sued Zhang. But copyright ownership is tricky. F&D had a sales agency agreement with non-party Goldenrod Holdings and its sub-sales agent Voltage Pictures.1...

    Read more →

    The Patent Version of Righthaven

    by  • October 23, 2017 • patent • 0 Comments

    The news has been abuzz with Allergan, Inc,’s assignment of the patents in the highly lucrative “Restasis” dry-eye drug to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and in turn receiving an exclusive license back. The transfer was so that the validity of the patents could not be challenged in an inter partes review because of...

    Read more →

    Not What Copyright Is For

    by  • October 16, 2017 • copyright • 0 Comments

    I previously wrote about a puzzling case, Small Justice LLC v. Xcentric Ventures L.L.C., with the defendant better know as Ripoff Report. The First Circuit has now grappled with it, although based on a revised district court opinion amended with a highly consequential footnote. To distill it down as much as possible, a lawyer,...

    Read more →

    Suing the Patent Owner

    by  • May 2, 2016 • patent • 0 Comments

    As we all know, standing is difficult in patent cases. There are two types of “exclusive” licensees (in my view, making jurisprudence very confusing). First is the “virtual assignee” who has essentially all of the rights of the patent owner and can sue for infringement without having to join the patent owner. Second is...

    Read more →