Swedish furniture company IKEA has long maintained a portfolio of trademark registrations in Indonesia since at least as early as 2005. However, IKEA did not open its first store in the country until 2014. An applicant is not required to show use of the mark in Indonesia as a requirement for registration (in direct contrast to the United States requirements). However, the registration may be vulnerable to cancellation if the owner fails to make use of the mark for a three-year period after registration.
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Firm Represents Fontainebleau Owners in Trademark Infringement Case
The firm is representing the trademark owners of the famed Fontainebleau Hotel in a trademark infringement suit. For more, please visit Law360’s coverage of the case.
Firm Named “Tier 1 Best Law Firm” in US News 2016 “Best Law Firms” Edition
The Firm has been named in the prestigious US News 2016 “Best Law Firms” Edition, as achieving Tier 1 recognition in the areas of Patent Law, Trademark Law, Copyright Law, and Intellectual Property Litigation. https://issuu.com/bestlawyers/docs/blf2016-cover-elements
Apple’s “Spell Correction” and “Slide-to-Unlock” Patents Invalidated by Federal Circuit
In the perpetual Apple v. Samsung (and Samsung v. Apple) battles for patent dominance, the Federal Circuit’s most recent decision invalidated two of Apple’s asserted patents, notwithstanding a jury verdict finding the opposite. The two claims were directed to Apple’s mobile device patents, including automated spell corection, slide-to-unlock (found in the lower court to have been infringed by Samsung devices, and resulting in $119 million in damages). The claimed features were invalidated on appeal to the Federal Circuit based on 35 U.S.C. 103, in that each of the “slide-to-unlock” and “spell correction” claims were obvious in view of the prior art. In support of the patents, Apple presented evidence of copying, industry praise, long-felt but unsolved need, and commercial success all being secondary considerations of nonobvious. The Federal Circuit reviewed Apple’s presented evidence, and collectively found the secondary evidence to be too weak to overcome the evidence of obviousness based on the prior art, and reversed the lower court’s jury verdict.
Circumventing the IPR Statute of Limitations via Discretionary Joinder
In an ongoing dispute between VirnetX Inc. vs. Apple Inc., Apple Inc. had challenged the validity of two asserted VirnetX patents (US Patent Nos. 6,502,135 and 7,490,151). Apple was initially unsuccessful in its IPR institution requests, because it was time barred under the IPR statute of limitations, which requires a PTAB IPR challenge to be brought within 1-year from the date that the complaint is served on the defendant. After several failed attempts, Apple Inc. recently circumvented the IPR statute of limitations, via 35 U.S.C. 315(c) joinder to another petitioner, The Mangrove Partners Master Fund, Ltd.
Supreme Court Grants Cert. in Design Patent Damages Case
In the unending saga of Samsung v. Apple, the Supreme Court has recently granted certiorari on a single question relating to damages in a case of design patent infringement, that is: where a design patent only covers a single component of an overall product, should a damages award be limited only to those profits attributed to that component? For more on this case, head over to SCOTUSblog.