IPR NEWS – WEEKLY UPDATES FROM 2nd OCT – 8th OCT
QUALCOMM v. APPLE
Despite the fact that the two tech titans’ legal battle over three smartphone patents had been resolved, the U.S. Supreme Court on October 3, once more declined to consider Apple Inc.’s request to resurrect the case. In 2017, Qualcomm filed a lawsuit against Apple in federal court in San Diego, alleging that the company’s iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches violated many mobile technology patents. The lawsuit concerned a larger international conflict between the two digital behemoths. At the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple contested the legality of the patents at issue in this case. In a 2-1 decision, a Federal Circuit three-judge panel dismissed the action last year for lack of standing, concluding that Apple’s likelihood of facing more litigation was speculative and that the case would not have any bearing on the settlement payments. The same as in the “materially identical” case that the high court dismissed, Qualcomm has once more claimed that Apple has not demonstrated a specific injury to support the appeal.
BIOGEN INT’L GMBH, ET AL. V. MYLAN PHARMACEUTICALS INC.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case in a legal dispute with generic drugmaker Viatris on October 3, which meant that Biogen was unable to successfully reinstate a patent on the company’s popular multiple sclerosis medication Tecfidera. The justices rejected Biogen’s (BIIB) appeal, upholding the lower court’s decision to invalidate a significant patent covering the treatment’s 480 mg dose. The ruling made in June 2020 enabled Mylan Pharmaceuticals, a division of VTRS, to introduce a generic version of Tecfidera. As generic competition hurts sales of the multiple sclerosis brand, Biogen is growing its pipeline with a focus on Alzheimer’s. In the United States, Tecfidera sales decreased by 30% in the first half of 2022.
TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS USA INC V. GLAXOSMITHKLINE LLC,
On October 3, the U.S. Supreme Court sought the administration of President Joe Biden’s advice on whether the court should take up Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.’s appeal of a $235 million judgment in favour of GlaxoSmithKline LLC in a patent dispute involving generic heart medication. A lower court decision that affirmed the jury award for U.K.-based GSK has been appealed by Israeli company Teva. The ruling may have an impact on the future of “thin labels,” which help generic drug makers avoid patent lawsuits by omitting potential infringing uses of a brand-name medicine from their labelling. In 2014, GSK sued Teva in a federal court in Delaware over the company’s generic version of GSK’s cardiac medication Coreg. In its petition to the Supreme Court, Teva argued that the decision will “wreak havoc” and deter people from using skinny labels, which it claimed were “extraordinarily widespread” and “save patients and the federal government billions.”
COACHELLA MUSIC FESTIVEL LLC VS AFROCHELLA LIMITED
Ghana’s Afrochella is being sued by the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and its promoter, Goldenvoice, for claimed trademark infringement. Coachella and Goldenvoice claim that Afrochella is “intentionally trading on the goodwill of [Coachella and Goldenvoice’s] well-known COACHELLA and CHELLA festivals and trademarks by actively promoting music events in the United States and in Ghana using the confusingly similar mark ‘AFROCHELLA’ and by fraudulently intending to register Plaintiffs’ actual trademarks as its own.” The lawsuit was filed in a California federal court on October 5 and obtained by Coachella and Goldenvoice
PEPS INDUSTRIES PRIVATE LIMITED v. KURLON LIMITED
On October 7, the Delhi High Court made the observation that courts are not free to question the validity of a trademark registration suo moto unless the registration has been contested. The Court also stated, “Therefore, once the mark has been registered, it is recognized as, prima facie, legal unless an objection is brought contesting the validity of the registration and is decided by the Court.” A rectification process can be started against a descriptive mark if the owner of a trademark fails to demonstrate that it has acquired distinctive character via extensive use, according to the bench of Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Amit Mahajan. When determining the case between Peps Industries and Kurlon Limited, the court made these observations.
INTEL CORP. V. VLSI TECHNOLOGY LLC,
On October 7, On Friday, the Federal Circuit heard arguments from Intel Corp. and VLSI Technology LLC in a multibillion-dollar patent infringement action involving the legality of VLSI’s computer chip patent. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision to uphold some of VLSI’s US Patent No. 8,081,026’s claims was questioned by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which found flaws in Intel and VLSI’s respective defences. The patent is only one of many that VLSI sued Intel over in Delaware in 2018, asking for billions in damages, but the district court case has been put on hold while appeals of some of the board’s rulings are being processed.
MACMILLAN LEARNING V. SHOPIFY INC,
Shopify Inc. and a number of textbook publishers have requested a U.S. court to dismiss the case on the grounds that the software business is making money off of information that is stolen or violates their trademarks. Shopify and the corporations filed a joint document in a Virginia court on October 3 claiming they had settled the dispute and wanted the case to be dismissed with each party paying for their own attorneys’ fees. According to Shopify spokesperson Alex Lyons in an email statement, “The case has been settled amicably between the parties, and terms of the settlement agreement are secret.” The legal battle started around the end of last year when the textbook publishers claimed Shopify’s software enabled retailers to forcibly copy and sell textbooks, test banks, and other guides that were “substantially indistinguishable” from their own goods. They claimed the e-commerce software vendor Shopify gave these businesses “anonymity, a false veneer of legitimacy, and a safe harbour from which to flout the law.”
MEASURES TO DOWNGRADE TO RATINGS OF CHINESE PATENT AGENCIES.
A draught of new regulations was published by the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), which would lower the ratings of Chinese patent offices that grant erroneous or fraudulent patents. The draught, which builds on a trial that began in January 2022 in four provinces, was made available by CNIPA on October 8. The goal of the proposal is to “crack down on illegal and dishonest conduct” committed by Chinese patent offices and to advance the healthy growth of Chinese intellectual property. The most recent changes solely impact Chinese patent agencies; trademark agencies are not affected. A, B, C, and D are the four grades that make up the scoring system in the draught. If organizations are discovered to be acting as agents to submit “abnormal patent applications,” whether domestically or internationally, deductions are given.
WORLDS INC. V. ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC.
The Supreme Court on October 3 decided to decline number of certiorari writ which includes this case where it declined to answer two Section 101 queries posed by Worlds, which was appealing the District of Massachusetts’ decision to invalidate its patent claims pertaining to virtual world technologies. Worlds Inc. v. Activision Blizzard Inc. In step one of the Alice/Mayo framework for evaluating Section 101 eligibility, Worlds had urged the nation’s highest court to explain the criterion for establishing whether a patent claim is “directed to” a patent-ineligible notion, but the court denied to comment on it.
USPTO SUSPENDS SPONSORSHIP ON SCAM BY INDIAN AMERICAN ATTORNEYS
This past week on October 3, the U.S. The Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has suspended the sponsored accounts of two American lawyers who gave an Indian legal business access to their names and bar credentials in order to submit trademark applications in contravention of USPTO regulations. The Indian firm pretended to be based in the United States while representing clients in trademark registration by using the names of American attorneys. Due to violations of the Trademark Verified Account Agreement, the accounts were suspended. The USPTO took away the attorneys’ right to sponsor accounts for attorney support personnel on the USPTO.gov platform.