standing
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Billy-Bob Teeth Bites Again
I recently wrote about the difference between standing in patent cases and copyright cases, and the always erudite Ron Coleman over at Likelihood of Confusion contributed on the topic. There is, in my mind, a flaw in copyright jurisprudence that essentially bars a defendant from challenging the chain of title for ownership of a copyright.… Continue reading
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Standing is a Lot Easier for Copyrights
I’m curious about the different legal standards that the courts apply in patent versus copyright cases when deciding whether a plaintiff who acquired the rights through transfer has standing. Patent law seems draconian, as exemplified by Abraxis Bioscience, Inc. v. Navinta, LLC. In Abraxis (blogged here and here), standing for a patent infringement suit was… Continue reading
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It’s Not Really a “Work Made for Hire”
One of the most misunderstood aspects of copyright law is work-made-for-hire. The lay understanding is that a work created at the request of another in exchange for payment is a “work for hire.” That’s not true, as explained by the Supreme Court in 1989 in Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, but nevertheless it must… Continue reading
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Whoops, the State Owns the Mark
Florida VirtualSchool is an agency of the State of Florida. The enabling statute for the school says this: The board of trustees … may acquire, enjoy, use and dispose of patents, copyrights, and trademarks and any licenses and other rights or interests thereunder or therein. Ownership of all such patents, copyrights, trademarks, licenses, and rights… Continue reading
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I Learned What “Dubitante” Means
For purposes of patent standing, there are generally three categories of ownership described: patent owner, exclusive licensee, and non-exclusive licensee. The first has the right to sue, an exclusive licensee must join the assignee in any patent infringement suit, and the non-exclusive licensee has no standing at all. But the first category can be subdivided.… Continue reading
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The Missing Inventor
I love cases where the defendant goes back and finds another potential inventor. Stemcells, Inc. v. Neuralstem, Inc. shows some of the ways this can play out – in this case, standing, and the rarely-invoked bona fide purchaser in good faith defense. The patents in dispute are 7,115,418entitled “Methods of proliferating undifferentiated neural cells” and… Continue reading
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No Infringement for Claim Conditioned on Rescission
Lufkin Industries sued Ken Nolen, Sim Gibbs and other former employees in Texas state court for trade secret misappropriation. Nolen and Gibbs counterclaimed alleging they were fraudulently induced to assign some patents to Lufkin and sought a declaration that they are the rightful owners of the patents. The counterclaim was severed and removed to federal… Continue reading
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Sketchy Standing Decision
The only good thing about the latest Federal Circuit standing decision is that it’s nonprecedential. This is the sequence of events, taken from both the majority’s and dissent’s statement of them: In 2002, The Dow Chemical Company (“Dow”) assigned patents to a holding company, Dow Global Technologies, Inc. (“DGTI”). The dissent described the assignment as… Continue reading
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The Danger of Terms of Art
Sherman & Associates, Inc. v. Oxford Instruments, PLC discusses the fairly commonplace question of whether plaintiff Sherman & Associates, who was only a patent licensee, has standing to sue. The answer hinged on interpretation of the contract between it and the patent owner, ASM America, Inc. Sherman & Associates was originally the owner of the… Continue reading
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Beneficial Owners Don’t Have Standing
The Eastern District of Virginia recently held that a beneficial owner of a patent has standing to bring an infringement claim. It appears the Federal Circuit disagrees. The ‘451 patent was invented by Mayer Michael Lebowitz and James Seivert, both deceased. The Lebowitz Trust now owns Mr. Lebowitz’s ownership interest in the patent. The Trust… Continue reading
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