While all eyes have been trained on the confirmation hearings from last week, the Supreme Court made news in the IP world. The Court granted certiorari in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew (Nos. 19-1434, -1452, -1458), a decision analyzing the Appointments Clause, U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, Cl. 2. In Arthrex, a panel of the Federal Circuit held that the statutory scheme for appointing administrative patent judges (APJs) of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board violates the Appointments Clause.… More
Category Archives: Supreme Court
Booking.whocares: SCOTUS Issues a Headline-Making Trademark Decision… But Does It Really Matter?
On June 30, amidst the traditional flurry of end-of-term opinions, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the first case to have been argued before it via teleconference, United States Patent and Trademark Office et al. v. Booking.com B.V. In addition to making history in the remote-work era, this case caught the attention of trademark lawyers and some mainstream media;… More
Georgia On Our Minds: Annotations Authored by Legislators Not Eligible for Copyright Protection
On April 27, the Supreme Court took us on a stroll down memory lane in its decision in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., referring us back to its very first copyright case and revisiting the government edicts doctrine for the first time in more than a century. The Court, applying logic from Wheaton v. Peters, along with Banks v.… More