(California Court of Appeal) - Reversed. Plaintiff brought a petition for writ of mandate claiming the fee charged by Defendant, County of Alameda, for copies of official records violated Government Code section 27366. Trial court granted petition and issued a preliminary injunction against Defendant and awarded attorney fees to Plaintiff. Appeals court found that the County did not abuse its discretion in determining the fee it charged or that section 27366 was violated.

(California Court of Appeal) - Reversed and remanded. The trial court sustained the Defendant’s demurrer without leave to amend to Plaintiff’s third amended complaint. The appellate court held that Plaintiff made a sufficient showing for leave to amend and directed Plaintiff to amend their complaint consistent with this opinion.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Partially affirmed, remanded. A Texas ban on public corporations obtaining package store permits did not violate Equal Protection rights, but the district court erred in finding a discriminatory nature and burden imposed by the public corporation ban.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the district court's determination that patents relating to aspects of the production of an antibiotic compound were obvious implementations of disclosures made in other patents that would constitute nothing more than the routine way a skilled artisan would apply the patent's teachings.

(United States Federal Circuit) - In a patent infringement action, the district court's judgment for plaintiff Bayer is reversed where it clearly erred in determining that a skilled artisan would not have been motivated to create an oral disintegrating tablet version of an erectile dysfunction drug using specified sugar alcohols with the tablet formulated for immediate-release.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the district court's rulings in the case of a patent infringement claim relating to cardiovascular drugs where the court held that the plaintiff had proven that the defense's sale of proposed generic drugs with their proposed labels would induce physicians to infringe, and holding that none of the patents were invalid for obviousness.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Returning once again after climbing and descending the appellate ladder several times, the court held that the defendant had not forfeited its preemption defense and that the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act preempts state law remedies for an applicant's failure to comply with aspects of the Act, and affirming the dismissal of the state law claims.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the district court's finding of noninfringement and remanding to determine whether the on-sale bar applies in a case relating to an anti-coagulant drug because a different production method was distinguished from the patented method and a patent is invalid if the product was offered for sale and ready for patenting prior to the filing of the application.

(United States Second Circuit) - Affirming a district court decision holding that a putative class action suit that organic labeled baby formula included ingredients not permitted under the Organic Foods Production Act because their state law claims were preempted by the Act.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirming the district court dismissal of a case in which a class of purchasers of securities issued by a drug company that the investors said recklessly misled them about their target date for submitting an application to the Food and Drug Administration for a drug approval because the court did not err in finding that they had failed to state a claim.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the decision of the district court holding, after a bench trial, that the asserted claims of a patent relating to the treatment of schizophrenia with iloperidone administered based on the genotype of the patient were infringed and not invalid.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the judgment that Merck, initially defending its patent on Hepatitis C drugs against a competitor seeking to have them found invalid, who successfully counter-sued for infringement, had unclean hands regarding the patents and was properly barred from asserting its patents and awarded attorney fees to the plaintiff.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Vacating the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's dismissal of an interference claim for lack of standing and remanding for further proceedings because the description of a method for removing hair using nanoparticles to damage hair follicles was a sufficient written description under the Patent Act because although the description only gave optical density rather than particles per ml, this was enough of a disclosure to convey to those skilled in the art that the inventor had possession of the claimed subject matter.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the dismissal of a declaratory judgment action filed against the producer of several antiviral drugs used in the treatment of AIDS by an organization providing medical care to AIDS sufferers seeking to have patents declared invalid because the action failed to meet the requirements of the Declaratory Judgment Act.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review proceeding of patents relating to boron-containing small molecules used to treat fungal infections, holding that all of the claims of a patent owned by a company were unpatentable for obviousness.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirming in part and reversing in part the inter partes review decision of the US Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Bard holding claims for methods of distributing nitric oxide gas cylinders for pharmaceutical applications used in treating respiratory failure as unpatentable as obvious because, while the Board didn't err as to most of the rulings, it did as to one.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed the bench trial finding that valid patents still existed in a longstanding pharmaceutical drug called Aveed after defendant Custopharm was sued for patent infringement by Endo Pharmaceuticals and Bayer after seeking FDA approval to produce a generic version of Aveed.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed a finding of patent claim invalidity involving certain claims related to a drug distribution system for tracking prescriptions of sensitive drugs, such as those with addictive properties. In affirming, the Federal Circuit held that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not err and that its determination, on inter partes review, that the patents were invalid was obvious.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed that tribal sovereign immunity could not be asserted in a patent proceeding. A pharmaceutical company involved in a dispute over an eye medication patent transferred the title of its patent to a Native American tribe, which then moved to terminate the patent proceeding on the basis of sovereign immunity. Concluding that tribal sovereign immunity cannot be asserted in inter partes review, the Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of the Tribe's motion to terminate the proceeding.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that a False Claims Act lawsuit had to be dismissed because it was not the first-filed case accusing the defendant pharmaceutical company of certain improper Medicare and Medicaid billing practices. The plaintiff (relator) argued that his action should be allowed to proceed because the earlier action was no longer pending. Disagreeing, the Second Circuit held that a violation of the first‐to‐file bar, which prohibits a person from bringing a related qui tam action when one is already pending, cannot be remedied by amending or supplementing the complaint. The panel reversed and remanded.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversed in part the dismissal of a securities fraud class action alleging that a biotechnology firm misrepresented to investors the status of a clinical drug trial. An investor brought this suit contending that the company and certain top executives violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court erred in part in dismissing the complaint for failure to state a claim. The panel also ruled that the district court abused its discretion in judicially noticing certain facts and in incorporating certain documents into the complaint.

(United States First Circuit) - Affirmed the dismissal of a consumer complaint alleging that manufacturers of prescription eye drops deliberately designed their bottles to emit unnecessarily large drops in a ploy to force patients to waste the expensive medication and thus buy more of it. Moving to dismiss on preemption grounds, the manufacturers contended that the Food and Drug Administration would have to approve any modification of the medication's bottle. Agreeing, the First Circuit held that FDA regulations preempted the plaintiffs' state law claims seeking to force a change in the bottle design.

(United States Third Circuit) - Reinstated a medical device seller's claim that certain Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance companies violated antitrust law by unreasonably restraining trade in the national market for outpatient cardiac monitors. The seller of a cardiac monitoring device contended that it was shut out of the market because the defendants conspired to deny insurance coverage for its product to shield themselves from patient demand for it. Holding that the seller stated a claim under section 1 of the Sherman Act, the Third Circuit reversed dismissal of the complaint and remanded for further proceedings.

(United States Federal Circuit) - Affirmed a judgment of no interference-in-fact in a patent case involving the CRISPR-Cas9 system for the targeted cutting of DNA molecules. The Federal Circuit found no error in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's conclusion of no interference-in-fact, in this case pitting the Broad Institute, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and others against the University of California, the University of Vienna, and others.

(United States Second Circuit) - Held that it was proper to remand to New York state court a case in which a labor union health plan sought disclosure of a patent dispute settlement agreement between pharmaceutical companies and the generic manufacturer of the EpiPen. Affirmed the district court's remand order, in this special proceeding under New York law seeking pre‐action disclosure.

(United States Supreme Court) - Held that an inventor's sale of an invention to a third party who is obligated to keep the invention confidential can qualify as prior art for purposes of determining the patentability of the invention. The dispute here involved two pharmaceutical companies that disagreed about whether a certain drug was under patent; one of the companies wanted to market a generic version of it. Justice Thomas delivered the unanimous opinion.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Held that a manufacturer of medical syringes that falsely advertised its products did not have to disgorge its profits. That remedy would not be equitable under the circumstances here. Affirmed a post-trial ruling, in this lawsuit brought by a competing syringe manufacturer that also involved antitrust claims.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In a suit brought by a company in the business of selling internet domain names and operates the popular .com and .net top-level domains, alleging its competitor made a series of statements touting the popularity of the .xyz domain and warning of a scarcity of desirable .com domain names which violated the Lanham Act's false advertising provisions, the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendant is affirmed where: 1) as to defendant's self-promoting statements, most of which concern its registration numbers, plaintiff failed to produce the required evidence that it suffered an actual injury as a direct result of defendant’s conduct; and 2) plaintiff did not establish that defendant's statements about the availability of suitable .com domain names were false or misleading statements of fact, as required for Lanham Act liability.

(United States Second Circuit) - In a copyright infringement suit brought by the company that owns the recordings of the Turtles, a well-known rock band with a string of hits in the 1960s, on behalf of itself and a class of owners of pre-1972 recordings against largest radio and internet-radio broadcaster in the U.S., the district court's denial of defendant's motions for summary judgment and reconsideration is reversed where, in response to questions certified to the New York Court of Appeals, New York common law does not recognize a right of public performance for creators of pre-1972 sound recordings.

(California Court of Appeal) - In a dispute between a employer reviews website, brought by a video gaming company against the website operator, seeking the name of a Jane Doe reviewer who purportedly posted confidential information on the website about the employer in violation of a confidentiality agreement, the website operator's petition for a writ directing the trial court to set aside its order to reveal Doe's real name is granted where the employer failed to make a prima facie showing that Doe's statements disclosed confidential information in violation of the nondisclosure agreement.

(United States Fourth Circuit) - In a class action complaint against the developer of a mobile video game entitled 'Game of War: Fire Age', pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), asserting a claim under Maryland's gambling loss recovery statute (Loss Recovery Statute), Md. Code Ann., Crim. Law section 12-110, alleging plaintiffs lost money participating in an unlawful 'gaming device,' a component of Game of War that allows players to 'spin' a virtual wheel to win virtual prizes for use within that video game, and seeking recovery of gambling losses that players incurred as a result of 'spinning' the virtual wheel, the district court's dismissal of the complaint is affirmed where the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff did not 'lose money' within the meaning of the Loss Recovery Statute as a result of her participation in the Game of War casino, and thus she failed to state a claim under Maryland's Loss Recovery Statute.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a copyright dispute arising out of photographs posted online on defendant's social media website, the district court's summary judgment that defendant was entitled protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is reversed where: 1) the safe harbor set forth in 17 U.S.C. section 512(c) would apply if the photographs were posted at the direction of users; 2) defendant posted the photographs after a team of volunteer moderators, led by an employee of the defendant, reviewed and approved them; 3) the common law of agency applied to the defendant's safe harbor defense; and 4) there were genuine factual disputes regarding whether the moderators were the defendant's agents.

(United States First Circuit) - In a suit brought by a solo law practitioner alleging that defendant violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) when it issued a software license key that expired on May 31, 2011, despite the fact that he owned a permanent license to the software at issue, the district court's order adopting the magistrate judge's report and recommendation, denying plaintiff's motion to strike, and granting HSI's motion for summary judgment are affirmed where plaintiff failed to establish the necessary $75,000 amount in controversy.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In an action under the Lanham Act, seeking cancellation of the GOOGLE trademark on the ground that it is generic, the district court's summary judgment in favor of defendant Google is affirmed where: 1) a claim of genericness or 'genericide,' where the public appropriates a trademark and uses it as a generic name for particular types of goods or services irrespective of its source, must be made with regard to a particular type of good or service; 2) the district court thus correctly focused on internet search engines rather than the 'act' of searching the internet; and 3) the verb use of the word 'google' to mean 'search the internet,' as opposed to adjective use, did not automatically constitute generic use.

(United States Federal Circuit) - In a patent action, construing the term 'pivot table' in relation to two of plaintiff's patents, the district court's 1) claim construction is affirmed as supported by intrinsic evidence; but its 2) indefiniteness determination is reversed because the claims' scopes are reasonably certain.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a civil procedure action, arising from a copyright infringement action brought by plaintiffs, American companies in the natural foods industry, against defendant, a UK limited company, after defendant sent an email newsletter containing plaintiffs' logos to 343 email addresses, the district court's dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction is affirmed where defendant's suit-related conduct did not create a substantial connection with California.

(United States First Circuit) - Reversed and remanded in a case involving the enforcement of arbitration clauses in online contracts. Plaintiffs filed suit against defendant alleging violations of Massachusetts consumer-protection statute. Defendant operates a ride-sharing service requiring customers to register using the Uber App. In the app is a page that has a button that will take you to Terms and Conditions, which a user is not required to accept and which contains an agreement to arbitrate any dispute. The district court granted defendant's motion to compel arbitration and dismissed the complaint. In reversing and remanding the First Circuit held that the terms of the agreement were not reasonably communicated to plaintiffs.

(California Court of Appeal) - Held that Apple Inc. was not liable for a five-year-old girl's death and injuries to her family members that occurred when a driver using the FaceTime application on his iPhone crashed into her parents' car on a Texas highway. Affirmed dismissal of the complaint, concluding that Apple did not owe a duty of care and that the iPhone's design was not a proximate cause.

(United States Fifth Circuit) - Held that Apple Inc. was not liable for a fatal car crash that happened when a distracted driver looked down to read a text message on her iPhone 5. The suit alleged that the iPhone caused the accident because it had no lockout mechanism. Affirmed dismissal of the complaint, holding that Texas law would not regard a driver's neurobiological response to a smartphone notification as a cause of a car crash.

(United States Seventh Circuit) - Held that homeowners could not proceed with a lawsuit against the real estate website Zillow, which allegedly estimated their homes to have inaccurately low values, thus making it difficult for them to obtain favorable sales prices. Affirmed a dismissal of their unfair trade practice and other claims.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Upheld a beach town's ordinance imposing restrictions on companies, such as Airbnb Inc., that host online platforms for short-term vacation rentals. The internet companies claimed that the ordinance impermissibly infringed their First Amendment rights or was preempted by federal law. Disagreeing, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of their lawsuit seeking to enjoin the ordinance.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a copyright infringement lawsuit against the real estate website Zillow, reversed a judgment after a jury trial, in part. A photography studio claimed that Zillow violated its copyrights in photographs of homes.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Affirmed that a business owner contributorily infringed copyrighted photographs by displaying them on his website. However, remanded for further proceedings on whether the infringement was willful.

(United States Second Circuit) - Revived a media company's claim that a popular website infringed its copyright in certain photographs of famous celebrities. The website, which enables users to create and share digital photo collages, has a clipper tool that lets users clip images from other websites. Reversed summary judgment in relevant part, in this case involving the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Struck down as unconstitutional a 2015 amendment to the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act that created a debt-collection exception. The issue arose in a consumer lawsuit alleging that Facebook unlawfully sent text messages using an automated telephone dialing system (to alert users, as a security precaution, when their account was accessed from an unrecognized device). Reversed the dismissal of a proposed class action.

(Supreme Court of California) - The issue is whether or not California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act can be used to bring a claim against a business when the Plaintiff visits the business’s website with the intention of using its services only to be allegedly denied full and equal access to its services and then Plaintiff leaves without entering into an agreement with the service provider. The Court answered in the affirmative.

(United States Supreme Court) - Holding that a putative class member may not, in lieu of promptly joining an existing suit or promptly filing an individual claim, commence a class action anew beyond the time allowed by the applicable statute of limitations and reversing and remanding the Ninth Circuit's reversal of a District Court dismissal of an untimely class complaint.

(United States Third Circuit) - Affirmed an order remanding a consumer class action to state court. The defendant home security equipment businesses had removed the case to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act, but the plaintiffs showed that an exception to CAFA jurisdiction applied. The Third Circuit noted that under the local-controversy exception, a district court must decline to exercise jurisdiction over a class action involving a uniquely local controversy, as defined in the statute.

(United States Ninth Circuit) - Reversed the denial of class certification in an action where a healthcare company was accused of unlawfully sending unsolicited faxed advertisements in violation of the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The district court denied the motion for class certification on the ground that individual issues would predominate over issues common to the putative class. On an interlocutory appeal, the Ninth Circuit disagreed and remanded for further proceedings.

(United States Second Circuit) - Vacated the certification of a consumer class action alleging that Johnson & Johnson deceptively labeled several of its baby bath products as being natural when they were not. The district court had certified a class consisting of consumers who purchased the products in eighteen states. On appeal, the Second Circuit was not convinced that the district court had carefully considered the material differences in the state laws at issue before concluding that their similarities predominated over their differences, and therefore the appeals court vacated and remanded.