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On February 24, 2020, VirnetX announced the U.S. Supreme Court denied Apple’s petition for a writ of certiorari. Apple had asked the High Court to consider the Federal Circuit’s claimed misguided use of prior license agreements to calculate patent infringement damage awards without satisfying the Supreme Court’s precedent that an apportionment between patented and non-patented features of multi-component products be performed in every case.

Using the United States Courts’ annual Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics, Hampton IP looked at the number of copyright, patent, and trademark cases filed in federal district court and the percent of cases that reached trial annually over the last decade—March 31, 2010, through March 31, 2019.

On December 27, 2019, Apple Inc. petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari asking the High Court to consider what Apple claims is the Federal Circuit’s misguided use of prior license agreements to calculate patent infringement damage awards without satisfying the Supreme Court’s precedent that an apportionment between patented and non-patented features of multi-component products be performed in every case.

On January 9, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling rejecting the argument that unregistered copyrights may be eligible for statutory damages when subsequently registered if the defendant infringed the same work differently after the registration (e.g. copying vs. distribution).

A Summary Judgment ruling in Steves and Sons, Inc. v. JELD-WEN, Inc. heard in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in 2018, provides guidance to trade secret owners seeking damages under the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA”). The Court ruled that trade-secret damages may include anticipated future use of the trade secret under the DTSA if the anticipated future use is non-speculative and based on solid evidence.

On October 22, 2019, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 410 to 6 in favor of creating a small-claims court for copyright matters.

On November 8, 2019, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”), and will consider whether the addition of “.com” transforms generic terms into protectable trademarks.

Adobe hired Hampton IP to provide trial testimony in a copyright infringement case. Hampton IP prepared an expert report and provided litigation consulting.

In 2018, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued two decisions. Both dealt with apportionment between patented and non-patented elements of multi-component products when calculating reasonable royalty damages.

On June 28, 2019, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a trademark dispute between Romag Fastener and Fossil to decide whether an award of an infringer’s profits requires a trademark owner to provide evidence the infringer acted willfully, a matter that has split the circuit courts.

In a March 4, 2019 decision, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a copyright dispute between Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. and Wall-Street.com, LLC to resolve a long-standing circuit split on when copyright registration occurs in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. §411 (i.e. the requirement for a copyright owner to obtain a copyright registration before filing an infringement suit).

On February 19, 2019, a federal judge in the Eastern District of North Carolina Western Division approved a $95,536,847 jury verdict against Walmart for willfully infringing Varsity Stores, Inc.’s “Backyard” trademarks in the sale of products bearing the BACKYARD GRILL+ Design mark. The case is Varsity Stores, Inc. v. Wal-Mart, Inc.

In Houston, Scott Hampton gave trial testimony in the patent dispute, Enventure Global Technology, Inc. v. Mohawk Energy, LTD.

In an endeavor to determine a reasonable royalty for an infringed patent, damage experts using a hypothetical negotiation should carefully consider other license and settlement agreements.

Social media and viral videos have altered the landscape of copyright enforcement. Opportunities to infringe original video content are many and tracking down every instance of copyright infringement is difficult.

Scott Hampton testifies in New York on copyright damages in the Universal Instruments Corporation v. Micro System Engineering, Inc., et al. copyright infringement trial.

In Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., the United States Supreme Court looked at design patents for the first time in more than a century.

On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”). The DTSA creates a federal cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed in its September 29, 2015, Nordock, Inc. v. Systems, Inc.decision that damage experts should not apportion “total profit” in design patent infringement cases under 35 U.S.C. §289.