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This week in IP: Courts shut amid protests, AI inventorship push, Tiger King’s cage rattled
Managing IP rounds up the latest patent, trademark and copyright news, including some stories you might have missed

Open and shut courtrooms
Several courts across the US shut their doors this week,
including the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the District Court for the Northern
District of California, amid mostly peaceful protests across the country over
the death of African American man George Floyd.
The Federal Circuit closed its offices on Monday
and Tuesday
on advice from law enforcement officers who were monitoring protests in
Washington DC, and announced that the clerk's office would be temporarily
inaccessible for paper submissions and deliveries.
A source at the court tells Managing IP that even though
arguments were to be heard remotely this week because of the
COVID-19 lockdown, such hearings would have been challenging because of the court’s
proximity to the White House.
The Northern District of California
also closed its doors on Wednesday “out
of an abundance of caution”. The court had been closed since March because of
the lockdown and, like many other district courts such as the Eastern District
of Texas, opened
its doors to the public again on June 1.
The District of New Jersey, which has
also been closed since March, decided to postpone its reopening for a week in
light of the public protests. The clerk’s office sent out a notice
on June 1 saying it wanted to ensure the utmost safety of the public and
members of the court.
Demonstrations have taken place in different cities across
the US and the world, with some of the biggest happening in New York, Los
Angeles and Washington DC, since Floyd was killed in Minneapolis on May
25 while being detained by police.
AI inventorship: WIPO publishes policy, Dabus calls for clarity
This was a big week for artificial intelligence
inventorship. WIPO published a revised issue paper on AI and IP policy and the DABUS team pushing for AI inventor
recognition appealed an adverse EPO decision.
WIPO’s revised paper updated the draft issues paper published in December 2019 with the addition of a glossary and
sections on trademarks and trade secrets, and an expansion of the sections
covering patents, copyright, infringement and deep fakes.
The revised issues paper, published on May 29, states under
Issue 2 that “the role of AI in the invention process is increasing”, and sets
out eight questions related to AI-generated inventions, including whether the
law should permit an AI application to be named as an inventor.
The paper also provides more information on patentable
subject matter and patentability guidelines under Issue 3, and inventive step or
non-obviousness under Issue 4.
The EPO appeal containing the statement of grounds for
appeal and accompanying annexes was published on May 25 and filed by law firm
Williams Powell on behalf of the patent applicant Stephen Thaler, the inventor
of DABUS (device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience).
This appeal comes after the patent office rejected the
initial application where DABUS was named as the inventor on
the grounds that an inventor must be a “natural person”, as set out by the
European Patent Convention.
The USPTO rejected a parallel application from the DABUS
team in April, similarly arguing that Title 35 of the US Code consistently refers to inventors as natural persons.
The EPO has yet to officially respond to the appeal.
Tiger King Joe Exotic loses zoo in trademark case
A zoo once owned by Joe Exotic, the star of Netflix
documentary Tiger King, will be given to his nemesis Carole Baskin as part of a
$1 million trademark and copyright dispute.
Baskin, a big-cat rights activist in the US, was given the
seven-figure award in a 2011 trademark infringement lawsuit against Exotic, whose
real name is Joseph Allen Maldonado-Passage. The suit involved Exotic’s use of
logos and images that were similar to those created and owned by Baskin’s
animal sanctuary in Florida.
Exotictold The Oklahoman at the time that the federal judge didn't give his legal team
enough time to proceed to trial, so the case was essentially settled. He
also said that he didn’t “plan to pay a dime” to Baskin and that the entity
that leased his land would soon file for bankruptcy.
Baskin claimed in a second suit filed in 2016 that Exotic had
subsequently transferred his Oklahoma-based property to his mother in an effort
to evade creditors. On Monday, Judge Scott Palk at the District Court for the
Western District of Oklahoma ordered that the property be turned over to
Baskin.
Exotic is serving a 22-year prison sentence for his
involvement in a murder-for-hire plot against Baskin and other crimes that
include animal abuse.
Nokia IP chief jumps to InterDigital
Nokia IP head Eeva Hakoranta has taken a new job as chief licensing officer with InterDigital,
it was announced on Wednesday.
Hakoranta, who has worked for the Finnish telecoms company
for more than 13 years, will take up her new position on July 1. She will
replace Timothy Berghuis, who is retiring and has been InterDigital’s chief
licensing officer since January 2018.
“InterDigital’s ability to attract someone with Eeva
Hakoranta’s capabilities and track record to lead such a crucial function as
licensing speaks to the strength of our technology and our position in the
industry,” said William Merritt, president and CEO at InterDigital.
“I am thrilled that she has chosen to join us, and very much
look forward to working with her as we execute on our mobile licensing programme,
continue to build our new CE licensing programme, and explore further
opportunities leveraging the tremendous research conducted at the company.”
Until 2012, Hakoranta was the director of Nokia's IPR legal team, which she had established upon joining the company in 2006. Before arriving at Nokia, she worked as a specialist counsel for law firm Roschier in Helsinki.
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