Welcome to the November 15, 2023 edition of Commercial Roundup. It will catch you up on the latest appellate decisions by federal appellate courts and the highest courts in Delaware, New York, and Texas on antitrust, arbitration, class actions, intellectual property, securities, and other important issues in complex business and commercial disputes.
This late-summer edition of Commercial Roundup features a notable ruling on personal jurisdiction, a pair of False Claims Act decisions, a couple of opinions tossing class certification orders, a 2-1 split in a securities fraud case (the dissent has the better end of it), a rare victory for plaintiffs in an action for unlawful maintenance
Welcome to the Commercial Roundup for July 26, 2023. With the U.S Supreme Court and the highest courts of New York and Texas on hiatus, the Supreme Court of Delaware and nine of the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals supplied the commercial decisions that Roundup has cut into little pieces for you to sample.
Welcome to this week’s Commercial Roundup—in which you’ll find links to the most significant rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and the 13 Courts of Appeals plus the highest courts in Delaware, New York, and Texas. You’ll also see other matters of interest to commercial trial lawyers and the firms and business people they represent.
This week a couple of Latin phrases we learned in the first year of law school headline the list. The first—res ipsa loquitur—means something like “the thing (res) speaks (loquitur) for itself (ipsa)” and provides a shortcut for a party wishing to prove a claim of negligence. The other Latin phrase—forum non conveniens—suggests the plaintiff brought a case in a place (forum) whose remoteness to the parties, witnesses, and sources of proof and lack of expertise in governing law (among other factors) render it sufficiently inconvenient (non conveniens) as to justify dismissing the case in favor of, or transferring it to, a much more convenient forum.
We also have an important First Circuit ruling on a pair of issues that arise often in efforts to enforce arbitration clauses and confirm awards, a “tacking” question regarding priority of trademarks, and decisions on when limitations starts to run in securities fraud cases, insurance coverage for COVID-19 losses, damages remedy for fraudulent transfer, and when prior art “anticipates” a claim limitation without mentioning it.
So here we go—Commercial Roundup for the week of April 5-12.Continue Reading Commercial Roundup – April 12, 2023
This week’s Commercial Roundup follows three days of all antitrust, all the time at the ABA Antitrust Law Section’s annual Spring Meeting in our nation’s capital. More than 3,700 government enforcers, private lawyers, judges, economists, econometricians, academics, students, and others assembled to talk about the recent past and future of antitrust in the U.S. and around the world.
The Roundup includes but one post about the Spring Meeting—BIG meets ABA—but it will give you a good sense of the combat that flickered into view amid the nerdy bonhomie. You can find other posts on the Spring Meeting here, here, and here.
Now, let’s get to the Roundup!Continue Reading Commercial Roundup – April 5, 2023
Welcome back to The Contingency!
Starting next Wednesday, we’ll resume a weekly schedule for posting a roundup of the biggest commercial-law rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, the 13 U.S. Courts of Appeals, and the highest courts of Delaware, New York, and Texas.
By “commercial law”, we mean the stuff of disputes with or
Extraordinary protection
Since 2007, wanton patent infringers have enjoyed extraordinary legal protection from awards of “enhanced” damages under section 284 of the Patent Act.
Last week, the Supreme Court stripped away three of the protections. The changes will make good patent cases better. But it won’t convert weak ones into strong ones.
Continue Reading Patent Cases Just Got Scarier
En banc court sidesteps high court
In Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1962, 1974 (2014) (post here), the Supreme Court ruled that the defense of laches — unreasonable delay in bringing suit — does not preclude recovery of damages for copyright infringement during the usual statute of limitations period (three years under the Copyright Act). Does the same rule apply to patent cases?
The en banc Federal Circuit held last week, by the smallest of margins (6-5), that Petrella does not govern cases under patent law. Defendants may thus cite a patent holder’s delay in filing a lawsuit as a ground for reducing or barring damages within the six-year pre-suit period that patent law generally allows.
Continue Reading Laches Can Limit Patent Damages, En Banc Federal Circuit Rules
The shock of the new
A lot turns on who invents a thing first. Billions maybe.
Patent law requires newness. The mandate can cause patent death even in the case of almost-but-not-quite “prior art”. If the older stuff “anticipates” the new thing, it renders the invention unpatentable.
A recent decision by the Federal Circuit highlights the anticipation question.
Continue Reading In Patent Law, Weeks Count