Here is a report on recent news and commentary related to the Federal Circuit and its cases. Today’s report highlights:
- an article about the Federal Circuit finding that “Apple can’t reach back through history and apply the Beatles’ Apple Corps mark . . . to protect a broad category of live events and recordings”; and
- another article about how “[t]he Federal Circuit has clarified how courts should determine when accused patent infringers are barred from making invalidity arguments they didn’t include in an earlier [inter partes review] challenge.”
Kelcee Griffis and Kyle Jahner co-authored an article for Bloomberg Law article about the Federal Circuit finding that “Apple can’t reach back through history and apply the Beatles’ Apple Corps mark . . . to protect a broad category of live events and recordings.” Griffis and Jahner reported how “the Federal Circuit used the case as a vehicle to clarify the bounds of an ill-defined trademark doctrine known as ‘tacking.’” Griffis and Jahner explained how the Federal Circuit indicated “[a]n opposer can block a trademark application by establishing priority for any of an applicant’s claimed products, but ‘the reverse is not true.’”
Ryan Davis wrote an article for Law360 about how the “Federal Circuit has clarified how courts should determine when accused patent infringers are barred from making invalidity arguments they didn’t include in an earlier [inter partes review] challenge.” Davis explained how “the appeals court for the first time addressed two issues dealing with the America Invents Act’s estoppel provision for inter partes reviews, which holds that patent challengers can’t argue in district court that a patent is invalid on grounds that they ‘raised or reasonably could have raised” in the review.’” Davis highlighted how the Federal Circuit “held that the burden is on the patent owner to show that the challenger’s invalidity evidence could have been uncovered previously and should be excluded from the infringement case, rather than on the challenger to show that it could not have been found.”