On June 26, 2017, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued an updated Examination Guideline 01-17, consistent with the recent Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S.___ (2017), ruling by the United States Supreme Court, and for which our analysis was the subject of a previous post. In that decision, the Supreme Court held that the …
Month: June 2017
SCOTUS Watch: Lanham Act’s §2(a) Disparagement Clause Struck Down
By Brent T. Yonehara On June 19, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court finally, and somewhat as expected, handed down its ruling in Matal v. Tam (formerly Lee v. Tam).[1] By a unanimous vote, the Supreme Court struck down the Lanham Act’s §2(a) prohibition on registration of disparaging trademarks as a violation of the First Amendment’s …
SCOTUS Watch: Cert Granted in Oil States: the Constitutionality of IPR Proceedings
By Brent T. Yonehara On June 12, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the petition for certiorari in Oil States Energy Services v. Greene’s Energy Group, LLC.[1] Of the three issues presented by petitioner Oil States, only one will be heard before the Supreme Court, namely: Whether inter partes review – an adversarial process used …
SCOTUS Watch: Supreme Court Redefines the Patent Exhaustion Doctrine
By Brent T. Yonehara On May 30, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc.[1], reversing the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on the scope of the patent exhaustion doctrine, also known as the first sale doctrine, and unequivocably stated in its opinion that “a patentee’s decision to …