Intellectual property law

Intellectual property law

To be clear, YMTC is not an ordinary China-based company. YMTC reached the Entity List after first being placed on the Unverified List in October 2022 when BIS was unable to complete end-use checks to verify that exported technology was being used as declared. Under President Biden, YMTC was added to the Entity List based on findings that the company creates a major risk of diversion (sharing key technology) with other parties on the entities list, including Huawei and Hangzhou Hikvision.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in Halicki v. Carroll Shelby Licensing, a case in which Denice Shakarian Halicki, widow of the creator of the "Gone in 60 Seconds" film franchise sought review of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision that held the car character "Eleanor," a customized Ford Mustang, was not entitled to copyright protection.

The groups argued that KlammereFyr removed the artistic context and immorally sexualized actors, sometimes by cropping scenes or "changing the lighting to accentuate certain features," TorrentFreak reported. To groups, it seemed clear that KlammereFyr was violating a rarely tested part of copyright law that protects artists' "integrity" by shielding their "moral rights." In Denmark, the "right of integrity means that even in cases where you are allowed to make use of a work, you are not allowed to change it

Despite the AI boom, influencer brand deals are largely being written without clauses related to AI, intellectual property and copyright, which could leave creators and brands exposed, IP lawyers say. At least five creators (ranging in follower size and content type) Digiday spoke with confirmed no such clauses have been added to their brand deals this year. Those clauses could include usage rights limiting a brand's ability to use a creator's synthetic name, image and likeness, or curbing creators' AI tool usage in creative assets without disclosing use.

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These three focused on the USPTO's February 2025 rescission of Sotera stipulation guidance offered a safe harbor against discretionary denial for petitioners involved in parallel district court litigation over the patent. The three-judge panel was almost the same of Judges Dyk, Linn (opinion author), and Cunningham (with Stoll replacing Cunningham on the Google decision) rejected constitutional and Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenges to the policy change, holding that 35 U.S.C. § 314(d) renders institution decisions "final and nonappealable" and that mandamus is ordinarily unavailable to review such discretionary determinations.

"Getty Images sued Stability AI in the UK back in January 2023, alleging a host of legal violations including primary and secondary infringement under UK copyright law, database right infringement, trademark infringement and passing off. Getty's claims focused on the Stable Diffusion deep learning AI model, which is trained by repeated exposure to massive data stores to transform written user prompts into synthesized images."

NEXA claims the group used confidential information from its internal Mortgage Academy training program to benefit Platinum One Lending, a Michigan-based competitor in which Grella holds an ownership interest. NEXA also accuses Grella and Platinum One of encouraging Wake's breaches and working with her to recruit NEXA's staff to harm the company. The company calls this a civil conspiracy. The amendment builds upon the May 2025 filing.

"Our partnership with vLex is a natural fit: Its legal data and workflows will enrich our environment, amplifying our ability to deliver intelligent, transformative solutions for clients," said Katherine Lowry, Chief Information Officer at BakerHostetler. "We're entering a phase where AI isn't just a tool - it's part of operations. We're focused on connecting AI to the data we already trust, both internally and externally, to drive better decisions and outcomes."

Automattic has filed new counterclaims against hosting company WP Engine in a long-running dispute over the use of the WordPress and WooCommerce brands. Automattic manages WordPress.com and WooCommerce, among other things. It is also closely linked to the development of WordPress. Automattic claims that since being acquired by investment firm Silver Lake, WP Engine has undermined the trust that has been built up over decades around WordPress and the open-source community.

The Albanese government has explicitly ruled out handing tech companies free rein to mine creative content to train their artificial intelligence models, after a fierce backlash from authors and arts and media groups. The attorney general, Michelle Rowland, will confirm the decision on Monday, shutting the door on a contentious proposal floated by the Productivity Commission and backed by tech companies.

While I will let the proverbial dust settle for a bit on the big news out of the USPTO regarding changes to the IPR scheme, there is no doubt that seismic change is afoot. The fallout promises to impact everyone up and down the patent ecosystem's food chain, from patent owners, to defendants, and the entire universe of vendors, funders, and counsel that has been developed over the past decade to deal with parallel litigation in patent cases between district courts and the USPTO's PTAB. But there will be plenty of time to see what changes going forward, even as the heads of many have already been spinning for much of this year based on the implementation of a more robust discretionary denial gauntlet for IPR petitioners to navigate through.

The leading contender is Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., No. 24-889, which asks whether a generic drug manufacturer that fully carves patented uses out of its FDA-approved label can nonetheless face induced infringement liability simply by calling its product a "generic version" of the brand-name drug or referencing publicly available information about the branded product's sales. The

"Overall, the data shows that, generally, smaller law firms have more patent proofreading errors in their work than large law firms." In an ideal world, every patent law firm, from a small practice drafting 50 patents a year to a large firm drafting thousands a year, would deliver patents for their clients that contain no errors. In reality though, patent drafting is complex and tedious work, and errors inevitably occur.

The USPTO's recently published notice of proposed rulemaking (RIN 0651-AD89, Docket No. PTO-P-2025-0025) for inter partes review (IPR) proceedings seeks to curb multiple IPR challenges to the same patent. This aligns with the USPTO's recent and decisive shift toward limiting accessibility of IPRs as a means to challenge patents outside of the district courts. While the USPTO claims to promote "fairness, efficiency, and predictability," the practical impact would be a dramatic change in the risk calculus for accused infringers.

We blogged on these decisions here, here, here, here, and here. On October 17, 2025, newly appointed Director Squires issued an open letter and memorandum to the public and to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), taking back authority previously delegated to the Board to decide whether to institute an IPR or PGR proceeding on the merits. Now, the Director will issue summary notices on whether to institute proceedings.