IP Law Bulletin

We have previously noted that assignments executed solely by the assignor (e.g., an inventor when assigning rights to their employer) are technically deficient in Europe due to a difference between U.S. and European law. In particular, Article 72 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) requires assignments to bear “the signature of the parties to the contract,” while contract law in the U.S. considers a contract signed only by the conveying party to be valid for this type of one-way conveyance.

Earlier this year, we discussed the potential ramifications of the December 2015 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on the pleading standard of infringement following the decision in Rembrandt Patent Innovations LLC v. Apple Inc. In Rembrandt, the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California applied the Twombly/Iqbal standard of pleading to infringement contentions following the abrogation of Rule 84 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and Form 18.

The U.S. Commerce Department recently released a comprehensive report, entitled “Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy: 2016 Update” (the “Report”). The Report, which was co-authored by the Economics & Statistics Administration and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, builds upon an earlier 2012 report, finding that “IP-intensive industries continue to be a major, integral and growing part of the U.S. economy.” The Report provides a wealth of quantitative information and analysis on the value of trademarks, copyrights, and patents to the U.S. economy. Key findings include:

The public comments have been considered and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board rule changes proposed in April 2016 and summarized in this blog post have been confirmed with only minor exceptions. The new rules will be effective on January 14, 2017, and will apply to all opposition and cancellation proceedings active on that date or subsequently filed.

“Infringement, whether direct or contributory, is essentially a tort,

and implies invasion of some right of the patentee.”

Louis D. Brandeis took his seat on the bench of the United States Supreme Court for the first time on Monday, October 9, 1916. That opening day of the new term included the swearing in of Associate Justice John H. Clark and oral argument on several motions. It also marked the beginning of Justice Brandeis’s twenty-three-year tenure (1916-1939) on the high court, which is now considered one of the most important in American jurisprudence. Justice Brandeis was not only the first Jewish jurist to sit on the Supreme Court, but he impressed upon his colleagues that the law had to reflect economic and societal realities. In essence, he brought the principles that guided him in the practice of law to the bench.

Nutter was co-founded by Justice Brandeis in 1879 and his legacy continues as a source of pride and inspiration for us today. To honor the hundredth anniversary of Justice Brandeis’s first session, we have summarized several of the patent opinions he authored below.