Americas
01 April 2010
• Federal Circuit bolsters design patents The Federal Circuit in February overturned a ruling by the International Trade Commission (ITC) that said that shoe designs mimicking the popular Crocs footwear did not infringe the company's design patent. In his opinion, Judge Randall Rader of the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied the Egyptian Goddess standard for determining design patent infringement. He criticised the ITC for its "excessive reliance on a detailed verbal description in design infringement cases", saying that the written claim description in this case "distorts the infringement analysis by the ordinary observer viewing the design as a whole". Lawyers say that the decision could encourage more IP owners to protect their innovations with design patents.
• Supreme Court ruling narrows copyright protection The US Supreme Court ruled definitively in Reed Elsevier v Muchnick last month that copyright owners must register a work with the Copyright...
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