Banner Witcoff

In a set of decisions on September 29, 2016, and November 16, 2016, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) denied all eight petitions for inter partes review filed by Skechers U.S.A., Inc., aimed at invalidating design patents owned by Banner & Witcoff client NIKE, Inc. (Case Nos. IPR2016-00870, IPR2016-00871,…

John P. Iwanicki discusses how the Supreme Court will approach the question of whether a single genetic testing kit component is sufficient to meet the test of a “substantial portion” of a potentially infringing article in the Medical Device Daily article, “Bright-Line Test in Promega Seen as a No-Go.” Click here to read the article (subscription required).

Steve S. Chang evaluates the Supreme Court’s decision in Samsung v. Apple in the article, “SCOTUS Apple v. Samsung Ruling, Just the FAQs.” In a nutshell, he says, the Supreme Court decided one issue in the longstanding dispute and returned the case to the Federal Circuit for further review. Click here to read his article.  

Another Bite at the Apple…Maybe? Supreme Court Reverses and Remands to the Federal Circuit By Steve Chang and Richard Stockton Less than two months after oral argument, the U.S. Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision in Samsung v. Apple (Case No. 15-777). But it does not seem as significant as expected. Background In 2012, a…

Banner & Witcoff congratulates client ReThink LLC for its recent appearance on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Trisha Prabhu, a 16-year-old innovator, social entrepreneur and advocate from Naperville, Ill., invented ReThink as a way to stop cyberbullying. When a teenager posts a message on social media, ReThink uses its context sensitive filtering technology to determine whether or…

Charles W. Shifley evaluates the arguments of patent owners and challengers involved in inter partes review in World Intellectual Property Review. Please click here to read his article, “IPR: histrionics and statistics.” Subscription is required.

SCA Hygiene: Mountain or Mole Hill? That is the Question By Ernest V. Linek The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC (Case No. 15-927) on Nov. 1, 2016. The question presented to the court was whether and to what extent the defense of laches…

Darrell G. Mottley, who attended the Supreme Court’s arguments in Star Athletica v. Varsity Brands, discusses the justices’ take on camouflage and how it compares to the design of cheerleading uniforms in Managing Intellectual Property. The article points out that “camouflage is both copyrightable and functional, in that it provides concealment to the wearable, but the…

Banner & Witcoff received a National Tier 1 ranking in intellectual property litigation, patent litigation and patent law in the 2017 edition of U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers’ “Best Law Firms.” Tier 1 rankings are determined through feedback from clients and peers, as well as from information provided in law firm survey responses.…

Mr. Stockton discusses the difficulty the Supreme Court justices had in defining a test to establish the article of manufacture in Samsung v. Apple in Managing Intellectual Property. He says in the article that “it was difficult to discern whether the Supreme Court had made up its mind” about what they thought the test should…