How Cybersecurity Tabletop Exercises Can Help Your Business’ Cybersecurity Preparedness If your business was to experience a cyber incident today, are you confident that you have the tools and training to respond appropriately? If you have an incident response plan, are you certain that it will function seamlessly? Alternatively, if your organization lacks such a plan, do you know where to initiate the process? If […] Read Post →
Four Key Cybersecurity Threats To Your Business In today’s interconnected business environment, data drives business insights and technology are central to operations and customer interactions. While the digitalization of business operations and corporate data can provide immense benefits, it also creates new opportunities for bad actors. Cybersecurity measures help protect your business against vulnerabilities created by reliance on electronic data. It’s important […] Read Post →
2023 Cybersecurity Provisions in Iowa: What Your Business Should Be Doing As previously discussed, in March of 2023, Iowa’s Governor signed into law a new comprehensive state privacy law. Just over six months after SF 262 was signed and during cybersecurity awareness month, we would like to focus on the cybersecurity provisions introduces in SF 262. Key changes to Iowa’s laws include amendments to Iowa Code […] Read Post →
Ninth Circuit Sides with Instagram in Case Involving Copyright of Photographers’ Works In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the “server rule” which holds that websites embedding a copyrighted work do not violate the exclusive right to display that content under copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 106(5)) because they do not store or “fix” the copyrighted work in any “tangible medium of expression.” […] Read Post →
American Bar Association Announced Data Breach, More Than 1 Million Accounts Impacted The American Bar Association (ABA) announced on April 21 that it experienced a data breach in March 2023, resulting in the exposure of over 1.5 million member accounts. According to the ABA, an unauthorized user accessed its systems between February 28 and March 2, 2023, gaining access to member account information, including names, contact information, […] Read Post →
Iowa Governor Signs into Law Comprehensive Consumer Privacy Law On March 28, 2023 Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds signed into law Senate File 262 (SF 262). SF 262, scheduled to go into effect January 1, 2025, makes Iowa just the sixth U.S. state to pass a comprehensive state privacy law. The new law is a “global” consumer rights privacy law focused largely on general consumer […] Read Post →
How A.I. and Big Data Will (And Should) Change Your IP Strategy The last two decades have seen an increasing recognition of the value of patent rights. In many industries, ownership of a substantial number of patents is a clear sign of a company’s innovation capacity and leadership in the industry. Despite the growing interest in patent protection, the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and […] Read Post →
Heir to the Throne: Mariah Carey Becomes “Christmas Princess,” Loses Fantasy of Christmas “Queen” The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has determined that Mariah Carey is officially not the Queen of Christmas. Recently, Carey’s trademark application for “Queen of Christmas” along with the related applications for “QOC” (short for Queen of Christmas) and “Princess Christmas” were rejected by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the USPTO. The […] Read Post →
Mochi Muffins and the Need to Develop Value-Conscious, Emotionally-Intelligent Trademark Portfolios After much controversy, a Bay Area bakery has recently voluntarily surrendered its trademark for “mochi muffin.” Third Culture bakery, the self-declared “home of the mochi muffin” came under fire in June after the San Francisco Chronicle published an article accusing the bakery owners of obtaining a trademark for a “common term” and subsequently sending cease-and-desist letters to other businesses […] Read Post →
Radar-Based Sleep Trackers: Sweet Dreams or Privacy Nightmare? It’s no secret that more people than ever are sleeping poorly. A recent study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that more than half of all Americans have had problems sleeping since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even independent of the pandemic, an estimated 70 million Americans are believed to suffer from […] Read Post →
Every Step You Take (I’ll Be Watching You): Virtual Assistant Patents Raise Privacy Concerns An Intelligent Virtual Assistant (IVA) is an artificial intelligence system that emulates a human person in terms of intelligence, understanding, response, and adaptability. An IVA differs from traditional interactive voice response systems largely in its use of machine learning, which allows an IVA to predict user actions. The global IVA market is predicted to reach […] Read Post →
Upcoming Issues of Patent Eligibility in 2022: American Axle v. Neapco 2022 could bring about big changes in one of the most significant and murky areas of patent law: patent eligibility. In the upcoming year, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to take up a case which—in a Federal Circuit judge’s words—“bitterly divided” the appellate court on how to apply the law on patent eligibility. […] Read Post →
Psilocybin Patents Demonstrate Growth in the Psychedelics Market Public and medical interest in the use of psychedelics has steadily been expanding since the 1990s. Psilocybin is one of the most well-known psychedelic compounds. Psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms” is a compound produced by several species of fungi, and which has both psychoactive and hallucinogenic properties. Although psilocybin is still considered a Schedule […] Read Post →
Export of Seeds Protected by Plant Breeder’s Rights: Despite Countries Enhancing Regulations, Foreign Certificates Provide More Comprehensive Protection Shine Muscat grapes are a premium grape variety originally developed in Japan. They are particularly desirable because they are large, seedless, and have a high sugar content. Depending on location, the grapes can cost around 6,000 yen per pound (approximately $54 USD per pound), nearly 30 times the price of average green grapes in the […] Read Post →
When Business Relationship Information is Not a Trade Secret: Review by the Federal Circuit On March 12, 2021 the Federal Circuit provided a precedential opinion affirming a Florida district court’s decision declining to seal information regarding a business relationship between two businesses where the party seeking redaction failed to prove that the information was a trade secret. Plaintiff DePuy and Defendant Veterinary Orthopedic Implants, Inc. (VOI) are competitors in […] Read Post →
USPTO Report on Intellectual Property in China: Value, Validity, and Volume Last January the U.S. and China signed an Economic Trade Agreement which required China to overhaul its scheme of intellectual property protection. In October of 2020 the National People’s Congress passed new amendments to the Patent Law, which will come into effect on June 1, 2021. The most significant amendments to China’s patent law relate […] Read Post →
In a Galaxy Not So Far, Far Away: Millennial Falcon v. Millennium Falcon In October the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board issued a decision regarding the opposition proceedings against the trademark application “Millennial Falcon.” The trademark application “Millennial Falcon,” filed by Applicant Ilan Moskowitz aka Captain Contingency was directed to “entertainment services in the nature of live visual and audio performances by a live musical performance group, […] Read Post →
Fungal Fashion: Mycelium ‘Leather’ Cultivation of fungi has occurred for thousands of years. Evidence of fermented beverages using yeast dates back to as early as 7000 BCE. In the modern era, fungi are commonly used in the pharmaceutical industry, food and beverage industry, plastics industry, and others. The fashion industry is increasingly seeking methods of making and incorporating sustainable […] Read Post →
“Now is the Time to Explore Big New Ideas:” Iowa Business Leaders Encourage Innovation, Resilience, in a Time of Uncertainty The COVID-19 pandemic created and continues to create unprecedented levels of economic disruption in local and international communities. With so much uncertainty, business owners and entrepreneurs may feel the safest course of action is to minimize operations and delay expansion plans. In fact, they should do precisely the opposite, says Debi Durham, Director of the […] Read Post →
PTAB Determines the “Publicly Available” Standard Varies Between Examiners and Third Party Challengers In a precedential decision issued December of 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) in Hulu, LLC. V. Sound View Innovations, LLC (IPR 2018-01039) considered what is required for a petitioner in an inter partes review (IPR) to show that an asserted reference qualifies as a “printed publication.” Petitioner Hulu argued that patentee Sound View’s patent […] Read Post →
Amarin’s Eicosapentaenoic Acid Patents All Found Invalid – Lessons on Obviousness Earlier this week the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada issued a decision in the case of Amarin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., regarding the validity of six patents owned by Amarin Pharmaceuticals for the drug Vascepa. Amarin filed suit to prevent Hikma and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (DRL) from launching generic […] Read Post →
“T” is for Tesla and Trademark Elon Musk recently revealed that his company “Tesla” was almost branded “Faraday.” On December 1, Musk tweeted “Tesla was almost called Faraday, as [the] original holder of Tesla Motors trademark refused to sell it to us!” When another Twitter user asked how Tesla eventually got the rights to the name, Musk responded “We sent the nicest […] Read Post →
If You Pop, You Better Stop In the latest battle of branding, the Italian government has confiscated approximately 250 tubes of the “Prosecco & Pink Peppercorn” flavored Pringles from several grocery stores in the Veneto region. The Prosecco flavored Pringles were seized on the grounds that the use of the term “Prosecco” was allegedly not approved by the wine’s consortium of […] Read Post →
“The” Ohio State Tries to Trademark the Word “THE” On August 8, 2019 The Ohio State University filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the word mark “THE” to be used in connection with clothing, namely “t-shirts, baseball caps and hats.” Unlike Ohio State’s other trademark applications, which cover the phrase “The Ohio State University” as a whole, […] Read Post →
10 Data Privacy and Security Practices Your Business Should Adopt Data privacy and cybersecurity practices are becoming increasingly important in view of new legislation, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as well as the increasing sophistication of hackers and bad actors. Between 2000 and 2017, cybercrime and breaches of privacy impacted more than 4 million individuals. Cybercrime […] Read Post →
How to Prevent Theft of Your Corporate Intellectual Property in the Era of Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Intellectual property (IP) theft of corporate intellectual property can have significant ramifications for businesses and other entities. Corporate IP includes a variety of assets, such as patented technologies, trade secrets, copyrighted information and marketing materials, marketing and pricing plans, customer and partner data, and business reputation. IP assets play a valuable role in a business’s […] Read Post →
Burger King Ribs McDonald’s After Loss of ‘Big Mac’ Trademark in the E.U. In mid-January of 2019, McDonald’s lost its rights to the trademark ‘Big Mac’ in a European case which ruled in favor of an Irish fast food chain, Supermac’s. Supermac’s, founded in 1978 by Gaelic football player Pat McDonagh, offers a burger called the ‘Mighty Mac’. McDonald’s asserted that the ‘Mighty Mac’, along with other Supermac’s […] Read Post →
Oh Na Na What’s My Name?: Rihanna Sues Father for Trademark Misuse of “Fenty” Surname Robyn Rihanna Fenty (“Rihanna”) has filed a lawsuit against her father, Ronald Fenty, over the use of the name “Fenty.” Ronald Fenty uses the family surname in his company Fenty Entertainment, a company which recruits artistic talent and also develops television programs, motion pictures, and record producing. Over the last several years Rihanna has developed […] Read Post →
Ground Control to Robot Tom: Will U.S. Aerospace Corporations Move Into Unmanned Aerial Systems Innovation? Earlier this month the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure’s Subcommittee on Aviation held a hearing regarding the emergence of new aerospace technologies—particularly Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) — and how they can be incorporated into existing airspace systems. As unmanned aerospace innovation grows, regulatory agencies correspondingly must consider how to […] Read Post →
CRISPR Technologies: Overcoming Patentability Challenges in an Increasingly Difficult Patent Landscape The term “CRISPR,” which is an acronym for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, generally refers to RNA-guided genome editing technology used to engineer the genetic material of organisms with high accuracy and precision. It has wide applications in a variety of fields including genetics, biology, agriculture, medicine, and digital data storage, to name a […] Read Post →
Patent Eligibility of Bioinformatics Innovations Bioinformatics has increasingly become of interest in the last decade. Bioinformatics generally refers to the use of computational methods used to compile, analyze, visualize effects, and predict trends or outcomes for oftentimes large data sets. Bioinformatics tools can be applied to gene regulation, immunology, drug repositioning, drug identification, and virtually any other application where a […] Read Post →
All’s Fair in Love and Litigation: The Intellectual Property War of Bumble and Tinder Last month Match Group, which owns Tinder (as well as OkCupid, Match.com and Plenty of Fish) filed suit against Bumble alleging patent infringement, trademark infringement, and misappropriation of trade secrets. See Match Group, LLC, Plaintiff, v. Bumble Trading Inc., Defendant, 2018 WL 1371453 (W.D.Tex.). Match Group argues that Whitney Wolfe-Herd, a co-founder of Tinder, left […] Read Post →
The Future of GMOs in the UK Post-Brexit Following the United Kingdom triggering its formal exit from the European Union, negotiations regarding the details of the exit and the following transition period have begun. As one could expect, this negotiation process has brought to light underlying tensions between the UK and the EU. These tensions recently reached a peak when earlier this month […] Read Post →