Other Barks & Bites for Friday, August 29: IP News from IPWatchdog.com

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This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Ninth Circuit remands a copyright case involving Christian music composers after finding triable issues of access and similarity; the Federal Circuit affirms prosecution laches ruling against inventor Gil Hyatt; the U.S. Chamber releases its IP Statistical Annex showing a strong correlation between effective IP protection and R&D investment; the Trump Administration cancels collective bargaining agreements with several federal agencies including the USPTO and NASA; Anthropic AI enters into a class action settlement to end a copyright infringement case involving its Claude chatbot; the Second Circuit affirms the dismissal of a trademark case brought by Ripple Analytics after finding that the plaintiff did not own the trademark at issue; and Nvidia forecasts 50% sales growth over the upcoming quarter after beating analyst expectations on revenue.

Bites

CAFC Affirms Prosecution Laches Ruling for USPTO Against Inventor Gil Hyatt – On Friday, August 29, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Hyatt v. Stewart affirming the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s ruling that prosecution laches barred inventor Gil Hyatt’s action under 35 U.S.C. § 145 from obtaining patent claims, finding no abuse of discretion despite Hyatt’s argument that he properly relied on U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rulings until an intervening change in prosecution laches was made by the Federal Circuit in 2002’s Symbol Technologies v. Lemelson Medical. The Federal Circuit also dismissed cross-appeals filed by Hyatt challenging the district court’s determination that it lacked Article III standing to consider Hyatt’s claims involving patent examiner rejections that were reversed at the USPTO, ruling that while Hyatt’s bare allegations of dissatisfaction with decisions by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) established Article III jurisdiction at the pleading stage, Hyatt needed to submit an affidavit or other evidence of injury for the district court to maintain jurisdiction over his claims.

Ninth Circuit Finds Triable Access Issues in Christian Music Copyright Infringement Case – On Wednesday, August 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published opinion in Ambrosetti v. Oregon Catholic Press finding that the District of Oregon did not abuse its discretion in excluding as discovery sanctions certain evidence proffered by songwriter Vincent Ambrosetti purporting to show Oregon Catholic Press’ access to Ambrosetti’s song “Emmanuel,” which was allegedly copied into Bernadette Farrell’s music composition “Christ Be Our Light.” However, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court because, even without the excluded evidence, the appellate court found triable issues of fact whether Farrell had access to Ambrosetti’s work under either a chain of events or widespread dissemination theory, and whether the works were either substantially or strikingly similar.

CAFC Urges PTAB Not to Revive Pre-AIA Interferences Through Derivation Analysis – On Tuesday, August 26, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Global Health Solutions LLC v. Selner affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) determination that patent applicant Marc Selner did not derive his invention from subject matter claimed in a patent application listing Global Health Solutions’ inventor in the first appeal of a derivation proceeding under the America Invents Act (AIA) litigated by the PTAB. Although the Federal Circuit affirmed, it addressed errors in the PTAB’s analysis, specifically the Board’s focus on which party was the first to invent despite the fact that Selner need only to have proven independent conception in light of relevant changes to the U.S. patent system wrought by the AIA, namely the change from a first-to-invent from a first-to-file system.

Second Circuit Affirms Lack of Standing for Ripple Following IP Assignment to Co-Founder – On Tuesday, August 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a ruling in Ripple Analytics Inc. v. People Center, Inc. affirming the Eastern District of New York’s dismissal of trademark infringement claims filed by human resources company Ripple Analytics against rival firm People Center after finding that Ripple Analytics did not own the trademark at issue in the case. Finding that all rights to the company’s intellectual property was assigned to the company’s co-founder and CEO pursuant to a 2018 agreement, the Second Circuit agreed with the district court that Ripple’s CEO failed to ratify or join the action as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 17, holding that a statement from the CEO attesting to his strong interest in the case did not give rise to ratification under Rule 17, which requires an attestation agreeing to be bound by the result of the court’s decision.

Ninth Circuit Reverses First, Fifth Amendment SJ Rulings for PhRMA on Drug Disclosure Law – On Tuesday, August 26, the Ninth Circuit issued a published opinion in Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America v. Stolfi reversing the District of Oregon’s grant of summary judgment to PhRMA on findings that Oregon House Bill 4005 (HB 4005), which mandates disclosure of certain drug information to the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services (DCBS) and provides for potential trade secret disclosures that are in the public interest, violated PhRMA’s rights under the First Amendment and constituted a taking under the Fifth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit found the product-specific economic information at issue to be commercial speech and that HB 4005’s commercial speech requirements survive intermediate scrutiny, and held that the district court should have treated PhRMA’s Fifth Amendment claim as a regulatory taking instead of a per se taking. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea dissented-in-part, arguing that pricing strategy disclosure requirements under HB 4005 compel non-commercial speech and should thus be subject to strict scrutiny under the First Amendment, which Judge Bea said the bill couldn’t survive.

 CAFC Remands Latest Brunetti Scandalous Mark Rejection Over Judge Lourie Dissent – On Tuesday, August 26, the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in In re: Brunetti vacating and remanding an examiner rejection of an application to register the word mark “FUCK” that was affirmed by the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Although the Federal Circuit rejected much of Brunetti’s appeal, the panel majority found that the TTAB did not articulate a viable standard for finding that the applied-for mark failed to function as a source indicator of Brunetti’s goods. Dissenting from the panel majority was Circuit Judge Alan Lourie, who agreed that the TTAB’s analysis had shortcomings but argued that “anyone living in today’s society of degraded language can readily tell that the f-word does not indicate the source of the proposed trademarked goods and distinguish them from goods of another.”

Barks

Trump Admin Cancels CBA With USPTO, NASA Employees – On Thursday, August 28, the White House announced that President Donald Trump had signed an executive order ending collective bargaining agreements (CBA) in several federal agencies having national security missions, including the USPTO and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

U.S. Chamber’s IP Statistical Annex Shows Strong IP Rights Driving Investment – On Wednesday, August 27, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued an IP Statistical Annex, including additional data following onto the Chamber’s annual International IP Index, demonstrating strong correlation between effective IP protection and 30 economic variables and highlighting that countries with effective IP protection are 41% more attractive to foreign investment and see 33% more private R&D investment.

USPTO Replacing Legacy Search Application With Single Assignment Search Interface – On Wednesday, August 27, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that effective September 27, the agency will release a new online Assignment Search application, which will replace both the Patents Assignment Search and Assignments on the Web legacy applications that will no longer be available on the same day.

Anthropic AI Negotiates Class Action Settlement Ending Copyright Case – On Tuesday, August 26, a stipulation with a proposed order was filed in the Northern District of California indicating that a class action settlement had been negotiated between generative artificial intelligence company Anthropic AI and a collection of author plaintiffs alleging that Anthropic AI pirated millions of copyrighted books to train its Claude chatbot model.

U.S. Copyright Office Invites Public to Third Webinar on Copyright Records Search System – On Tuesday, August 26, the U.S. Copyright Office announced that registration had opened for the agency’s third webinar in a series regarding use of the Copyright Public Records System (CPRS), which will discuss specific search scenarios, frequently asked questions and new features available through CPRS. 

New EUIPN Website Features Updated Interface, ECP Virtual Communities – On Tuesday, August 26, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) announced that a newly redesigned version of the official website for the European Intellectual Property Network (EUIPN) had been launched, featuring an interface with easier accessibility for both desktop and mobile browsers and a new Virtual Communities page within the European Cooperation Projects section.

This Week on Wall Street

Nvidia Says Q3 Sales Growth Will Remain Above 50% After Reporting Earnings Beat – On Wednesday, August 27, American semiconductor developer Nvidia Corp. posted its earnings for 2025’s second quarter, beating analyst expectations on revenue by $680 million and further indicating that the company should enjoy 50% sales growth through the third quarter thanks to strong demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2024 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: None
• Tuesday: None
• Wednesday: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. (105th); Salesforce.com, Inc. (102nd)
• Thursday: Broadcom Inc. (88th)
• Friday: None