IP Law Bulletin

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the United States Patent and Trademark Office has recently become a more dangerous place.

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board—usually referred to by its acronym “TTAB,” which is spoken (most often) as four separate letters (tee, tee, ay, bee) rather than the obvious and more concise vocalization of “tee-tab”—is the tribunal where you can go on appeal if you do not like the examiner’s rejection of your trademark application. It is also the tribunal that hears and adjudicates “Oppositions” filed by third party “opposers” against “applicants” seeking registration and “Petitions for Cancellation” where third party “petitioners” proceed against “respondents” registrations they feel were improvidently granted.

Recently the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) invalidated three patents held by Audatex North America, Inc. finding that the claims are not subject matter eligible under 35 U.S.C. §101 in view of the Supreme Court’s decision in Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S.Ct. 2347 (2014). The three patents were generally directed towards “a method and system for entering data relating to an insurance claim for a damaged vehicle.” In each case, the PTAB sided with the Petitioner, finding that the claims were directed towards the abstract idea of valuing a damaged vehicle based on information about that vehicle and therefore not patent eligible.

Most patent owners are aware that under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d), publication of a United States patent application confers provisional rights to the patent owner. The provisional rights allow an owner to collect damages for infringement of issued claims dating back to the date of publication provided that the claims are substantially similar to the claims that are included in the published application. It can often be difficult for a patent owner to prove that issued claims are substantially similar to published claims. However, even if a patent owner is able to prove claim similarity from publication to issuance, a further obstacle to collect pre-issuance damages was solidified by the Federal Circuit recently in Rosebud LMS v. Adobe Systems—the statutory requirement of actual notice. In the recent Federal Circuit decision, the Court found that constructive notice was insufficient to meet the actual notice requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 154(d), and that instead a patent owner must prove the infringer was actually aware of the patent at issue.

Patent owners recently received a favorable decision regarding exhaustion of patent rights from the en banc Federal Circuit.  The case, Lexmark International, Inc., v. Impression Products, Inc., concerns aftermarket print cartridge sales and the issue of whether Lexmark’s patent rights are exhausted by (1) sales within the U.S., despite the inclusion of a single-use/no-resale restriction, and (2) sales outside the U.S.  The Federal Circuit considered the case en banc to determine whether Supreme Court rulings in Quanta Computer, Inc., v. LG Electronics, Inc., and Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (see prior Nutter commentary here and here), had any effect on the previously-controlling Federal Circuit precedent.  Ultimately, the Federal Circuit distinguished the Supreme Court rulings and found for Lexmark based on the previously-controlling precedent.

In a decision likely to be lauded by patent applicants and owners, the Federal Circuit recently issued an opinion that affirms its staunch position that the bar to prove a patent owner made a disclaimer that impacts the claim scope is high. The opinion provides some useful quotes that prosecutors and litigators representing applicants and owners will likely be interested in calling upon when presenting argument against assertions that a previously taken position amounts to a disclaimer or disavowal by the applicant/owner.

In a decision dismissing plaintiffs’ claims of service mark infringement, the District of Massachusetts held that the plaintiffs’ transfer of “goodwill” in an asset purchase agreement also transferred plaintiffs’ rights to their service marks. In Pereyra and City Fitness Group, LLC v. Sedky, et al. (No. 15-cv-12854, 2015 WL 7854061, December 3, 2015) plaintiffs City Fitness and its sole owner, Roberto Pereyra, alleged that defendants unlawfully used City Fitness’s service marks after the parties executed an Asset Purchase Agreement (APA) that did not explicitly transfer the service marks to the defendants. Pereyra and City Fitness negotiated the APA with the defendants for the sale of City Fitness’s three Eastern Massachusetts health clubs, as well as the company’s assets. City Fitness operated its health clubs under the trade name “Leap Fitness” and registered two service marks under that name. The Leap Fitness marks appeared on the company’s signage, letterhead, business cards, t-shirts and its website. Defendants continued to use the marks for identification, marketing and promotional purposes after the deal with City Fitness.

Last month, the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California ruled that the Federal Circuit’s somewhat bare pleading standard for direct patent infringement is no longer sufficient following recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which went into effect on December 1, 2015. The court ruled that the plausibility pleading standard under Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ascroft v. Iqbal now applies to direct patent infringement claims.

The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington held, in Recognicorp, LLC v. Nintendo Co. Ltd., et al, that claims to certain methods and systems for encoding/decoding image data are not patent-eligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Recognicorp is an illustrative example of the use of preliminary motion practice to dispose of patent cases on the pleadings and of how software-based inventions that are premised on seemingly simple algorithms are particularly susceptible to early dismissal.

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a decision in the case of Cyber Solutions International LLC v. Pro Marketing Sales, Inc. Although the decision blazes no new legal territory, the facts of the case and rulings offer important lessons for both lenders and licensees.

The decision recounts the start up efforts of an emerging company focused on cybersecurity technology. As the company grew, it obtained a secured loan from a lender. In return for the loan, the company granted the lender a first position lien on all company assets including intellectual property. As is typical in any secured financing, the lien extended not just to property then owned by the company but also to property subsequently acquired by the company. Pursuant to the loan arrangement, the company agreed to standard provisions such as a restriction on its ability to sell its assets outside of the ordinary course of business without the permission of the lender.

On December 22nd the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its sua sponte en banc In re Tam decision regarding the constitutionality of the “disparaging” marks bar under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act.  A Federal Circuit panel previously upheld a Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (the TTAB) decision affirming the refusal under the disparaging marks provision of Section 2(a) of a trademark application for the mark "THE SLANTS." Would a “substantial composite” of Asians find the phrase THE SLANTS disparaging?  The answer was “yes”, as detailed in our earlier blog posting on this case.  Judge Moore, writing for the Federal Circuit panel in initially affirming the appeal decision, however, raised the question as to whether the court should consider the constitutionality issues about the registration standard raised by Mr. Tam on an en banc basis.  Her peers agreed to do so.