On April 28, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Celanese International Corp.’s challenge to a Federal Circuit decision which found the company’s patent on the process to create the artificial sweetener used in Coke Zero to be invalid. The Federal Circuit decision affirmed a holding from the U.S. International Trade Commission which initially deemed the patent invalid due to the on-sale bar.

The underlying issue in the case is whether Celanese’s patent, which covers an improved process for making acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), was invalid due to the on-sale bar. The ...

On May 1, 2025, a federal courtroom in San Francisco became ground zero for one of the most consequential copyright hearings in recent memory. The three hour hearing in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms marked the first major judicial test of whether using copyrighted works to train generative AI systems—like Meta’s LLaMA models—qualifies as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law. While Judge Vince Chhabria has yet to issue a formal decision, his comments during oral argument offer critical clues about how courts may approach this issue going forward.

Fair use, codified in 17 U.S.C. § ...

Until the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Viking River Cruises v. Moriana in 2022, California law had established that Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) claims could not be subject to binding arbitration.  With Viking River, however, employers were free to begin compelling “individual” PAGA claims to arbitration and, based on subsequent California case law, leaving the remaining “representative” PAGA action stayed in Superior Court pending an outcome of the individual arbitration.

Based on this precedent, the employer in Ford v. Silver F, Inc.

On April 24, 2025, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a contract provision restricting liability for willful injury was unenforceable under California Civil Code section 1668. This decision was in response to a certified question from the Ninth Circuit.

The underlying case, which was file in 2021, involved a barbecue sauce dispute. New England Country Foods (“NECF”) filed against its manufacturer, VanLaw, and sought $6 million in damages. NECF alleged that VanLaw copied the barbecue sauce at the end of the three-year manufacturing contract and tried to sell ...

            On April 29, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals revived the copyright infringement case filed by Sound and Color, LLC against Sam Smith, Normani, and related parties (collectively, “Defendants”) concerning the hit song "Dancing with a Stranger" by reversing the District Court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of Defendants. In making its decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the importance of the jury’s role in assessing substantial similarity.

            Sound and Color initiated a copyright infringement case against Defendants based on its allegation that the ...

In the recent decision of Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating, Inc., a California appellate court addressed the enforceability of prospective written meal period waivers for employees working shifts between five and six hours. The court affirmed that such waivers are valid under the California Labor Code and applicable Industrial Welfare Commission (IWC) Wage Orders, provided they are mutual, voluntary, and revocable at any time.

In the Bradsbery case, two former employees of Vicar Operating, Inc., a veterinary hospital operator, filed a class-action lawsuit alleging that the ...

Q: I am involved in pending litigation and would like to get a receiver appointed. The facts of the case, however, don’t exactly fit into the types of cases enumerated in Cal. Civ. Pro. Code §564(b). Is there some other bases for getting a receiver appointed?

A: Depending on the facts, there are many types of cases where a receiver can be appointed that are not specified in §564(b). Many are statutory. For example: to enforce an order of the family court, Cal. Fam. Code §290; to deal with health and safety code violations, Cal. Health & Safety Code § 17980(c); in unfair competition cases,  ...