Imagine That IP Law Blog

“This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Nothing in it. Silly stuff.” Eeyore, from A.A. Milne’s 1926 classic, Winnie-the-Pooh. Well, Eeyore, for the last 95 years millions of readers felt otherwise, at least when the writing business came to their beloved Pooh, Piglet, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo and Owl. This year, however, marks a new beginning for these characters and their friend Christopher Robin, for the U.S. copyright on the original Winnie-the-Pooh book expired on the last day of 2021. That includes not only the story but the wonderful ... Read More ›

It takes two to tango, and if you are like many of us still working remotely, you may use a two-step identification method for accessing a secure network, such as the Duo Security two-part authentication dance to log onto your remote platform. Well, you might be dancing to something different one day now that the Federal Circuit has upheld validity of a patent owned by Duo competitor CosmoKey. In CosmoKey Solutions, GMBH & Co. KG. v. Duo Security, LLC (Fed. Cir, Oct. 3, 2021), the appeals court reversed a Delaware District Court ruling that CosmoKey’s authentication patent U.S ... Read More ›

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is a catch phrase well known and of ancient origin. Benjamin Franklin even had a wry turn at it in Poor Richard's Almanack, 1741: “Beauty, like supreme dominion is but supported by opinion.”  As it turns out, however, in the opinion of the District Court of Delaware, “beauty,” or in this case, enhancement of the skin is not a term one ought to have in their patent claims, because that which relies on opinion is indefinite in the eyes of the court. Univ. of Mass. and Carmel Labs., LLC v. L’Oréal Inc., D.Del. (April 21, 2021).

University of ... Read More ›