(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming a US Court of International Trade final decision denying a motion for summary judgment to a company and granting a government cross motion for summary judgment because the court agreed with the Customs and Border Patrol's classification of the plaintiff's subject imports finding that the articles at issue, decorative plates and mugs, weren't eligible for duty free treatment.

(United States Third Circuit) - Affirming the dismissal of an in rem suit filed against a ship for cargo damage sustained in transit because liability for the damage was covered by the carrier's bill of lading, which included a forum selection clause requiring suit be brought in South Korea because although South Korean courts would not allow an in rem suit, the plaintiff could have brought an in personam suit and chose not to do so for strategic reasons and the foreign forum selection clause did not violate the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Reversing and remanding a US Court of Federal Claims summary judgment ruling that a company's overseas earnings did not entitle them to transitional benefits under the American Jobs Creation Act because their holding that the law only provided transitional relief for income earned between 2006 and 2006 was incorrect.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Partially affirming, partially reversing, partially vacating, and remanding a case in which the Aluminum Extrusions Fair Trade Committee appealed a decision of the US Court of International Trade affirming the scope of the US Department of Commerce ruling holding that Whirlpoo's kitchen appliance door handles with end caps don't fall within the scope of antidumping and countervailing duty orders on aluminum extrusions from the People's Republic of China.

(United States Supreme Court) - Vacating and remanding the Second Circuit's support of a motion to dismiss a complaint relating to allegations that Chinese sellers of Vitamin C were engaged in price and quantity fixing of exports to the US because although the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China averred that the alleged price fixing scheme was actually a pricing regime mandated by the Chinese Government the court was not bound to accord conclusive effect to the foreign government's statements. No law or regulation had been cited and a foreign nation's laws must be proven as facts.

(California Court of Appeal) - Upheld the constitutionality of a recently enacted California statute that effectively bans the importation and sale of ivory and rhinoceros horn. Affirmed judgment on the pleadings against the Ivory Education Institute's lawsuit, which contended that the statute is unconstitutionally vague on its face.

(US Federal Circuit) - 2019-2031

(United States Eighth Circuit) - Defendant's product infringed plaintiff-Gateway's black and white cow and spots trademark where the spots have acquired distinctiveness through secondary meaning, is not functional, and is entitled to protection.

(United States Eleventh Circuit) - Judgment against plaintiffs on their claims of trade dress infringement, trade dress dilution, and unjust enrichment, and judgment for one counter-claimant that a settlement agreement barred plaintiffs from bringing the present suit, are affirmed, as plaintiffs' claims fail as a matter of law. Where plaintiffs failed to file a postverdict motion regarding the settlement, they cannot raise it on appeal.

(United States Third Circuit) - In a trade dress infringement action brought by the marketer of the artificial sweetener Splenda against defendants, who package and distribute sucralose as store brands to a number of retail grocery chains, alleging their product packaging is confusingly similar to Splenda's, denial of plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction is affirmed in part, but reversed in part as to certain boxes and bags where plaintiff demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits with respect to the third element of trade dress infringement, as there was a likelihood of confusion between those products' trade dresses and the analogous Splenda trade dress.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a suit claiming that the defendant's traction hoists infringed the trade dress of the plaintiffs' traction hoist, the district court’s grant of summary judgment, its finding of exceptionality, and its award of attorney’s fees under the Lanham Act are affirmed, where the plaintiffs did not present evidence sufficient to create a triable issue as to the nonfunctionality of its claimed trade dress, but the district court's award of non-taxable costs and certain taxable costs is reversed.

(United States Third Circuit) - In this action alleging that defendants infringed upon plaintiff's trade dress in violation of the Lanham Act and unjustly enriched themselves by copying plaintiff's business, dismissal of plaintiff's trade dress and unjust enrichment claims and subsequent award of attorneys' fees to defendants is: 1) affirmed as to the trade dress and unjust enrichment claims, where plaintiff failed to adequately explain what "dress" it sought to protect, and plaintiff did not plead with sufficient particularity in what manner defendants had been unjustly enriched; and 2) vacated and remanded as to the award of attorneys' fees, where the award of reasonable fees would have been appropriate only to the extent that this was an "exceptional" case under section 35(a) of the Lanham Act.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed a judgment of liability under the Lanham Act for reverse passing off. At trial, a jury found that a manufacturer of industrial tires had arranged to obtain a competing manufacturer's tires with the labels removed and used the tires to solicit business from one of the competitor's customers. The Ninth Circuit affirmed a judgment that these actions violated the Lanham Act, which prohibits conduct that would confuse consumers as to the origin, sponsorship, or approval of goods or services. The panel's opinion also addressed other issues including trade dress validity.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that the manufacturer of a coffeemaker infringed the unregistered trade dress of a competitor's widely lauded product by mimicking the overall appearance. Affirmed a jury verdict.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirmed. Plaintiff appealed from a decision to deny his petition for discovery under 28 USC section 1782, which allows a party t petition for discovery for use in a foreign proceeding. Plaintiff sought certain materials to be used in opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office. The district court held that under Intel Corp v. Advanced Micro Devices, 542 US 241 that the material sought was irrelevant and would not be used by the EPO. The appellate court affirmed.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board which rejected certain patent claims as directed to non-statutory subject matter under 35 USC section 101. Plaintiff sought to patent a different phonetic symbol system that mapped letters to sounds. Court of Appeals affirmed the rejection stating that a patent is available per section 101, if it is a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or an improvement thereof. Further, it must be in a physical or tangible form.

(United States Supreme Court) - Reversed and remanded. WesternGeco owns a patent for a system to survey the ocean floor and they believed that a competing system owned by ION infringed on their patent. WesternGeco sued. The jury found ION liable and awarded WesternGeco damages including lost profit damages. ION argued that the lost profit damages was not allowed and the appellate court agreed with them. The US Supreme Court disagreed and reversed and remanded the decision stating that lost profits for a domestic patent was permissible under the Patent Act.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed in part and vacated in part where a jury found that defendant had infringed on plaintiff's patents and had awarded damages based on the entire market value rule. The Federal Circuit court affirmed the infringement judgment, but vacated the damages award stating that the entire market value rule could not be used in this case.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed that tribal sovereign immunity could not be asserted in a patent proceeding. A pharmaceutical company involved in a dispute over an eye medication patent transferred the title of its patent to a Native American tribe, which then moved to terminate the patent proceeding on the basis of sovereign immunity. Concluding that tribal sovereign immunity cannot be asserted in inter partes review, the Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of the Tribe's motion to terminate the proceeding.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed the trial court's decision which had denied Plaintiff's challenge to the Patent Board’s denial of its patent. The government sought to recover costs and attorney’s fees under section 145 of the Patent Act. The trial court held that costs may be recovered under section 145, but not attorney fees.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Reinstated a patent infringement claim relating to a design for a portable animal kennel. The patent owner insisted it should not be estopped by prosecution history from asserting its infringement claim against a competitor. Agreeing that estoppel did not apply, the Federal Circuit reversed the district court's judgment on the pleadings and remanded for further proceedings.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Vacated in part and affirmed in part. Plaintiff owns patents for making flameless candles. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board held that certain claims by plaintiff were unpatentable and some claims were time barred. The Federal Circuit vacated the time barred decision as to one of the claims and affirmed the Board’s decision as to the other claims.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and vacated in part. Plaintiff brought a patent infringement action. A jury found that the defendant infringed on both asserted claims and that neither claim was invalid. The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed some of plaintiff’s infringement claims, but stated that plaintiff’s theory of infringement of other claims was inadequate to support the judgment of infringement and therefore reversed on that claim.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Denied petitions for writ of mandamus. Plaintiff sought a writ challenging the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board denying the institution of inter partes review of claims from three patents owned by Semiconductor Components industries, LLC.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Vacated Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions invalidating three patents relating to videogame software. The patentee contended that the petitions for inter partes review were time-barred because an alleged real party in interest had been served with a complaint alleging infringement over one year prior to the IPRs' filing dates. Finding possible merit in this argument, the Federal Circuit vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In a trip and fall action, the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to defendant is reversed where there was dispute as to whether defendant or an adjacent business’s portion of a sidewalk was the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injuries.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In an injury case, alleging that plaintiff suffered severe mental and physical disabilities from in utero exposure to unleaded gasoline vapor caused by a defective fuel hose, the trial court’s exclusion of plaintiff’s expert witnesses from testifying at trial is affirmed where the experts did not rely on generally accepted principles and methodologies to reach their conclusions.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - Conviction for criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest is affirmed where the trial court did not abuse its discretion in relieving defendant’s attorney and appointing new counsel. Attorney’s employer, New York County Defender Services, represented the key government witness in a separate case arising from the same occurrence and refused to permit defendant’s attorney to search for and potentially call him as a witness.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - Conviction for criminal sale of a controlled substance is affirmed where defendant was given a reasonable opportunity to object to the legality of his guilty plea and didn't do so, thus failing to preserve his claim challenging the validity of his plea.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - Conviction for first-degree murder and other crimes is affirmed. The Court held that New York's standard for admitting evidence of third-party culpability, articulated in People v. Primo, 96 N.Y.2d 351 (2001), is consistent with Holmes v. South Carolina, 547 U.S. 319 (2006) and does not infringe on a defendant's constitutional right to present a complete defense.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In a contracts action arising from a dispute over the auction sale of a syndicated loan, the Appellate Division's grant of defendant's motion for summary judgment is reversed where the lack of a written sales agreement and plaintiffs' failure to submit a timely cash deposit were not conditions precedent to the formation of the parties' contract and do not render their agreement unenforceable.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In consolidated criminal actions concerning the People's change of their readiness status after having previously filed off-calendar statements of readiness, the Court held that there is a rebuttable presumption that such statements were truthful when made and that defendants can rebut the presumption with a demonstration that the People were not, in fact, ready at the time the statement was filed.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In a civil action, arising from an auto accident allegedly caused by defendant school district's sign distracting and obstructing passing drivers on a roadway, the trial court's conclusion that plaintiff should not be permitted to serve late notice of a claim is reversed where the trial court abused its discretion in determining that defendant would be substantially prejudiced without any record evidence to support that determination.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - In an injury and tort action, brought against defendant city after twelve-year old plaintiff was seriously injured in a collision involving a speeding driver on a Brooklyn roadway, the trial court's entry of judgment for plaintiff is affirmed. The Court held that: 1) plaintiff did not have to prove the existence of a special duty because the city's acts or omissions regarding the road were made in a proprietary capacity; 2) the evidence was legally sufficient to uphold the jury's finding that the city's negligence was a proximate cause of the accident; and 3) the doctrine of qualified immunity did not apply.

(Court of Appeals of New York) - Conviction for criminal possession of a weapon is affirmed where: 1) defendant failed to preserve his argument that the trial court erred by re-imposing the original sentence after reversal on appeal; and 2) defense counsel's failure to challenge the resentencing was not ineffective assistance of counsel.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A tenured teacher who waged an extended campaign against students who did not give him an award and sued the school when the Board of Trustees took action against him lost his appeal of the grant of summary judgment to the school. The First Amendment didn't protect his firing for intentionally causing harm to students and failing to follow the dean's instructions.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. The bankruptcy court's rejection of a Texas Port Authority's claims of sovereign immunity and fraud in their gambit to invalidate a bankruptcy sale that extinguished an easement they held was affirmed because there was no Eleventh Amendment violation or basis to claim fraud.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. A correctional facility was not entitled to qualified immunity in a putative class action suit by pretrial detainees that were denied running water and claimed Fourteenth Amendment violations.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Partially affirmed, remanded. A Texas ban on public corporations obtaining package store permits did not violate Equal Protection rights, but the district court erred in finding a discriminatory nature and burden imposed by the public corporation ban.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Plaintiff, an abortion care provider, sought a license from the State of Indiana to operate a clinic. Plaintiff made two unsuccessful license applications over a two-year period before resorting to the federal courts. The district court granted Plaintiff preliminary relief based on the likelihood that it would be successful at trial. Indiana appealed seeking a stay on the relief. Appellate ordered that Indiana should treat Plaintiff as though it were provisionally licensed while the litigation proceeds.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. Injunctions against the state preventing it from implementing a plan to purge voter rolls based on third party information rather than directly contacting voters was affirmed because plaintiff organizations established standing and the decision was not an abuse of discretion.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Affirmed. A conservation and reclamation district regulating groundwater was not subject to the one person, one vote principle of the Equal Protection Clause because they are a special purpose unit of the government. Its apportionment scheme had a rational basis.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Partially affirmed, partially reversed. The removal of children from a home under investigation for abuse did not result in substantive due process violation, but did result in procedural due process rights violation.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Affirmed. The district court properly dismissed complaint by Cook County residents raising Second Amendment claims challenging a ban on assault rifles because the issue had already been addressed by the court.

(United States Third Circuit) - In a case to determine whether SB 2460, which the New Jersey Legislature enacted in 2014 (2014 Law) to partially repeal certain prohibitions on sports gambling, violates federal law the district court's judgment that the 2014 Law violates the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), 28 U.S.C. sections 3701-3704, is affirmed where PASPA, but its terms, prohibits states from authorizing by law sports gambling, and the 2014 Law does exactly that.

(California Court of Appeal) - Petition for a writ of review of the Workers Compensation Appeals Board, challenging its jurisdiction over a claim by a former professional basketball player in the NBA from 1981 through 1984 for cumulative injuries, the Board's decision is affirmed where: 1) Labor Code section 5954 and Code of Civil Procedure section 1069 require verification of a petition to review a decision of the Appeals Board; 2) California has a legitimate interest in an industrial injury when the applicant was employed by a California corporation and participated in other games and practices in California for non-California NBA teams, during the period of exposure causing cumulative injury; and 3) subjecting petitioner to California workers' compensation law is reasonable and not a denial of due process.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In an action challenging defendant Towson University's refusal to allow plaintiff to return to playing football after he suffered a near-death heat-stroke induced coma requiring a liver transplant and additional surgeries, the district court's judgment for plaintiff under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is reversed where plaintiff was not otherwise qualified to participate in defendant's football program under defendant's reasonably applied Return-to-Play Policy.

(United States Third Circuit) - In an appeal to determine where whether SB 2460, which the New Jersey Legislature enacted in 2014 to partially repeal certain prohibitions on sports gambling, violates federal law, the District Court's holding that the 2014 Law violates the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), 28 U.S.C. sections 3701-3704, is affirmed where PASPA by its terms, prohibits states from authorizing by law sports gambling, and the 2014 Law does exactly that.

(California Court of Appeal) - In a suit brought following the break up of plaintiff's relationship with a former boxing champion, alleging invasion of privacy (both public disclosure of private facts and false light portrayal), defamation and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, based on defendant's social media postings about the termination of plaintiff's pregnancy and its relationship to the couple's separation and his comments during a radio interview concerning the extent to which plaintiff had undergone cosmetic surgery procedures, the trial court's denial of defendant's special motion to strike those causes of action pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 is reversed as to with respect to plaintiff's claims for defamation and false light portrayal, as well as her cause of action for public disclosure of private facts based on defendant's comments about plaintiff's cosmetic surgery. In all other respects, the judgment is affirmed.

(California Court of Appeal) - Affirming the trial court's grant of summary judgment to the defendant in a case involving a person struck by a horse during an endurance horse riding event on account of the doctrine of primary assumption of risk, and because Swigart failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to recklessness and the horse's propensity for danger.