Supreme Court End of Term 2020

The Surpeme Court seems to have ended its term for patent cases today – although the court has at least one more week of business before the summer break.

Petitions denied:

  • Collabo (retroactive IPR violates due process & takings); Celgene (same); Enzo (Same)
  • Hospira (limits on DOE); CJ CheilJedang (same)
  • Comcast (mootness of ITC decision for expired patent)

Federal Circuit decision Vacated & Remanded: 

  • Emerson Electric Co. (Thryv follow-on case)

Consideration of one fully briefed petition was postponed. Chrimar Systems. Chrimar has to do with the timing of judgment finality and issue preclusion. Particularly: How does claim cancellation via inter partes review impact prior court judgments upholding the the patent? (In this case, an appeal in the infringement litigation was still pending on other grounds).  A petition on related issues was recently filed in PhaZZer, and the court may be considering the issues together.

The last direct IP case for the court to decide this term is USPTO v. Booking.com. In that case, the USPTO wants to apply a bright-line-rule that adding “.com” to a generic word does not create a protect-able mark.  One reason I’m rooting for Booking.com is that they label me a Level 2 Genius! (Image below as proof).

 

3 thoughts on “Supreme Court End of Term 2020

  1. 2

    Congrats on being a “Genius Level 2,” Dennis!

    Is that better than “Genius Level 1”?

    I must acknowledge that by merely asking this question, I’m demonstrating I’m not yet Genius Level.

  2. 1

    They want to trademark Booking.com and then block all the other extensions, hundreds now. Booking.cc, Booking.is, Booking.top……………….

    Pure monopolistic practice. They should NOT be able to trademark a generic term like that. Sets a bad precedence.

    USPTO is right on this.

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