Nonfinal Office Action, U.S. Trademark Application Serial No. 99/704,819 (U.S.P.T.O. June 24, 2026) A great nickname can feel like a brand before anyone files a trademark application.  Fans use it, media members repeat it, and merchandise ideas follow naturally.  But trademark law does not protect a nickname simply because people associate it with a celebrity. […]

The dispute concerned the basivertebral nerve, a known source of chronic low back pain.  The nerve sits within the spongy interior of the vertebral body and close to the spinal cord; reaching it safely is difficult.  Boston Scientific’s ’166 patent claims a method for doing so: a radiofrequency probe is threaded through a straight introducer […]

Ex Parte Reexamination Control No. 90/015,984, U.S. Patent No. 8,810,458 (U.S.P.T.O. May 22, 2026) The USPTO recently denied a request for ex parte reexamination (“EPR”) after concluding that the Requester, Geotab USA, Inc., was attempting to relitigate substantially the same prior art and invalidity arguments that it had previously raised in an unsuccessful inter partes […]

Recently, the Southern District of New York (“District Court”) denied Federal Treasury Enterprise’s (“FTE”) motion for partial summary judgment seeking to prevent (collaterally estop) Spirits International et. al (collectively, “SPI”) from re-raising issues of trademark ownership that had been decided in Dutch and Russian Courts.  Specifically, the District Court found that even if an international court is considered a “competent jurisdiction,” procedural differences […]

In A.L.M. Holding Co. v. Zydex Industries Private Ltd., the district court refused to find waiver of attorney-client privilege that shielded pre-litigation communications with counsel even though the defendant asserted a defense that relied on its pre-litigation knowledge and where the communications with counsel might contradict its position regarding its pre-litigation knowledge. In September 2017, […]

Vascular Solutions LLC et al. v. Medtronic Inc. et al., No. 2024-1398 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 16, 2024); No. 0:19-cv-01760 (D. Minn.) A long-running patent dispute between Teleflex and Medtronic recently ended by settlement after a remand that was unusual even for seasoned patent litigators. Teleflex accused Medtronic’s Telescope guide-extension catheter of infringing a family of […]

On March 17, 2026, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that Sol de Janiero’s (“SDJ”) packaging for a beauty cream product was functional and therefore not entitled to trade dress protection under the Lanham Act. As a result, the court granted summary judgment in favor of Apollo Healthcare […]

Fortress Iron, LP v. Digger Specialties, Inc., 2026 WL 899158 (Fed. Cir. April 2, 2026) The Constitution mandates that the U.S. patent system promote the progress of science and useful arts.  Naming and crediting all inventors has long been central to that mandate.  While the Patent Act allows correction of inventorship errors, patentees should not take that remedy for granted.  In Fortress, the Federal Circuit held that failure to […]