In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey and Richard Buckley break down Campbell Soup Co. v. Campbell for Congress, the lawsuit over a political candidate's "Soup4Change" slogan and AI-generated soup can design. They cover the backstory, the trademark and First Amendment arguments, and how the Hershey case may influence the court's view of political campaign branding. Tune in for a clear look at where trademark law meets political speech.
Tradespace, the San Francisco-based AI-powered intellectual property management platform, has acquired Paragon, an AI patent-drafting startup founded by three Princeton University computer science students. The acquisition, Tradespace says, makes it the first AI-powered platform to support the complete IP lifecycle, from initial invention disclosure through patent drafting, prosecution, portfolio management and commercialization. The deal brings together two companies with complementary missions around democratizing access to patent protection.
Smartrend Manufacturing Group (SMG), Inc. v. Opti-Luxx Inc., No. 2024-1616 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 13, 2025). Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Dyk reversed a jury verdict finding that Opti-Luxx's illuminated school bus sign infringed SMG's U.S. Patent No. 11,348,491 under the doctrine of equivalents. The appellate court held that no reasonable jury could find the accused product's frame performed the same function as that claimed.
The Federal Circuit has reversed a lost profits award in a patent infringement case involving self-balancing unicycles, holding that the district court applied the wrong legal standard when it excluded evidence of noninfringing substitutes that were not actually "on sale during period of infringement." In Inventist Inc. v. Ninebot Inc. (USA), No. 2024-1010 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 14, 2025) (nonprecedential), the court reaffirmed the principle from Grain Processing Corp. v. American Maize-Products Co., 185 F.3d 1341 (Fed. Cir. 1999),
NetApp has filed a federal lawsuit against former Chief Technology Officer Jón Thorgrímur Stefánsson. The company alleges that during his employment, he used confidential information to establish a competing startup, which was acquired by rival VAST Data shortly after his departure. According to NetApp, the fact that VAST Data bought the startup Red Stapler shortly after its founding does not change the fact that VAST is not accused of involvement. The claims focus exclusively on the actions of Stefánsson and a few former colleagues.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday issued a precedential decision in Duke University v. Sandoz Inc., reversing a judgment from the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado and finding claim 30 of U.S. Patent No. 9,579,270 invalid for lacking an adequate written description. The ruling overturns a $39 million jury verdict finding that Sandoz Inc. infringed the patent owned by Duke University and Allergan Sales, LLC, which covers the eyelash growth drug, LATISSE.
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.
Above the Law and Tradespace partnered on a first-of-its-kind study to uncover how IP leaders are redefining the function: where they're investing, how they're measuring value, and what's next for the modern IP organization. Join us on December 3rd at 1 p.m. ET, as we reveal surprising patterns emerging from this new research - insights that challenge long-held assumptions about staffing, technology, and the business role of IP.
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."
AI image generators can create unique visuals within seconds from a single text prompt. Tech companies train these image generators on millions of images scraped most commonly from across the internet without attribution -- or, too rarely, licensed from individual creators or collections. When an AI image generator spits out an image from a user prompt, it's taking inspiration (or, in some cases, outright copying) from every human-generated image it's been trained on.
"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 patent system was designed for individual inventors. Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers-these were lone entrepreneurs securing temporary monopoly rights in exchange for disclosing their inventions to the public. But sometime after World War II, corporations and universities completed a quiet takeover of the patent office. Today's patent landscape is dominated by patent oligarchs: systematic corporate R&D programs filing thousands of applications annually, not individuals pursuing personal innovation.
