Imagine That IP Law Blog

The ongoing pandemic has wreaked uncertainty for many businesses. Forecasting expenses and costs, especially in the research and development areas, has become more difficult. In the intellectual property world, opinions of counsel on patentability, infringement, clearance, and validity are often overlooked as tools to control budgets and forecast spending. While each of these opinions will necessarily require upfront costs, the information they provide often yields tangible cost savings resulting from a more focused research and development effort. This article ... Read More ›

On Earth Day, environmentalists all over the world encourage society to reduce its collective carbon footprint. A popular way of generating less waste is “upcycling,” or the practice of taking something no longer being used and giving it new life. Upcycling often increases the value of the object; take, for example, Stuart Haygarth’s chandeliers made entirely from spectacles found on beaches - one sold at auction in 2008 for £36,500.

Upcycling is also at the heart of a recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In Hamilton International v ... Read More ›

There are an ever increasing number of developments being made on the Ethereum blockchain. Those closely following these developments may be aware of Uniswap’s announcement about its upcoming release of its V3 protocol on the Ethereum mainnet in May.

Uniswap is a DEX or decentralized exchange application for cryptocurrencies and tokens. Like most decentralized financial (DeFi) protocols, Uniswap runs on fully open-source software which utilize smart contracts on Ethereum’s blockchain. Being decentralized, Uniswap protocols are voted on by users of the platform, and ... Read More ›

Generally, many U.S. jurisdictions protect confidential communications between attorneys and their clients—attorneys and their clients cannot be forced to testify to these confidential communications and only the client can waive this privilege, unless the privilege is broken by some other event. Attorney-client privilege is broken when the confidential communication is shared with a third party, unless the third party is indispensable to the lawyer giving legal advice or facilitates in the lawyer giving legal advice (e.g., a client’s accountant present when the ... Read More ›

After more than a decade of litigation, the Supreme Court of the United States concluded that Google’s use of Oracle’s software code was fair use.

The dispute centered on use of Oracle’s Java programming language’s application programming interfaces (APIs) and source code, which was used in early versions of Google’s Android operating system. Oracle sued Google, arguing that the APIs were copyrightable. In response, Google asserted a defense of fair use.

Below we share the highlights from the Court’s long-awaited opinion.

A Victory for Fair Use

The Court found in ... Read More ›

Functional claim language—which defines an invention by what it does rather than what it is—can be a powerful claim drafting tool when used carefully. For example, functional language may be advantageous for computer-implemented inventions that are characterized with reference to logical components instead of physical hardware. 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) (formerly § 112¶ 6) expressly permits the use of functional claiming and is traditionally invoked by the phrase “means for” followed by a functional modifier. But even when the term “means” is not used, other terms that ... Read More ›