By James Juo. In Bot M8 v. Sony, No. 20-2218 (Fed. Cir. July 13, 2021), the Federal Circuit revisited once more the pleading standards for patent infringement, and held that a plaintiff is not required to plead infringement on an element-by-element basis. Citing In re Bill of Lading Transmission & Processing System Patent Litigation, 681 […]
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Rule 68 Offer of Judgment Could Cut Off Post-Offer Attorneys’ Fees to a Prevailing Plaintiff
By James Juo. Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 68, a defendant may serve “an offer to allow judgment on specified terms, with the costs then accrued.” If rejected, and the plaintiff recovers less than the amount of the rejected offer of judgment, then Rule 68 shifts the post-offer costs onto the insufficiently-successful prevailing plaintiff.[i] […]
O Say, Artesano, Is “Artisan” Generic or Merely Descriptive for Bread?
By James Juo. Bimbo Bakeries USA, owner of Sara Lee’s North American Fresh Bakery business, has been using ARTESANO as a trademark for pre-packaged sliced bread since August 31, 2015. In 2017, its parent, Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV, filed a U.S. trademark application to register the ARTESANO mark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark […]
Provisional Applications Are Not “Place Holders”
By: Kammie Cuneo More often than we’d like to hear, inventors refer to provisional applications as place holders—as though filing of the provisional application reserves some right to complete the invention at a later time or to supplement it after filing. But inventors should be cautioned against this attitude. The provisional application is filed under […]
Copyright Infringement But For De Minimis Doctrine
By James Juo. The incidental appearance of a trivial portion of a large visual work, such as an outdoor mural, in the background of a photograph may be de minimis use that does not give rise to copyright infringement. “Typically, courts examine the de minimis defense first to determine if any actionable copying has occurred. . . . […]