On August 31, at the request of Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USTPO) provided a report to Congress analyzing infringement disputes between patent and trademark rights holders and states and state entities. The U.S. Copyright Office produced a similar, much lengthier report, also in response to a letter from Tillis and Leahy, studying whether there is sufficient basis for federal legislation abrogating State sovereign immunity when States infringe copyrights. The Senators’ letters were prompted by the March 2020 Allen v. Cooper Supreme Court decision. While the USPTO report came to no conclusions, the Copyright Office found that “the evidence indicates that state infringement constitutes a legitimate concern for copyright owners.”
Recent Posts
- Rainmaking Mistakes Continued: If You’re ‘Too Busy to Market,’ You’re Dead Weight
- CAFC: Jury Instructions Must Address Each Objective Indicia of Nonobviousness Raised by Patent Owner
- Massive Replication of Comments Submitted to NIST March-In Rights RFI Should Cause Concern
- Lourie Dissents from CAFC View that Heart Valve Transport was Not Infringing
- Rader’s Ruminations – Patent Eligibility II: How the Supreme Court Ignored Statute and Revived Its Innovation-Killing Two-Step