It is a fundamental principle of trademark law that the first person to actually use a trademark in commerce has priority over that mark. “Use in commerce” is defined by statute to mean “the bona fide use of a mark in the ordinary course of trade.” A mark is deemed to be in use in commerce when it is placed “on the goods or their containers or the displays associated therewith or on the tags or labels affixed thereto.” 

How have courts interpreted this statute in practice?  Can you establish the use of a mark in commerce before you sell any products using that mark? How about years ...

On June 30, 2025, the Supreme Court granted a petition for certiorari from Cox Communications Inc. and agreed to weigh in on one of the most consequential digital copyright cases in recent memory. The Court’s ruling could redefine the scope of liability for internet service providers (“ISP”) and clarify the standards for contributory infringement and willfulness in the digital age.

How We Got Here

In 2018, a coalition of more than 50 major record labels filed suit against Cox in the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that Cox had turned a blind eye to massive copyright ...

Suno is a leading AI-powered music generation platform which transforms simple text prompts, images, videos, or audio clips into fully produced songs complete with vocals and instrumentation. Last week, renowned music producer Timbaland faced backlash after he shared a demo online which was created using Suno’s platform. Shortly after the video was posted, fans noticed that Timbaland’s demo bore a striking resemblance to a beat made by another producer, K Fresh Music. K Fresh’s audible signature tag was even retained in the AI track but no credit was ever given to K Fresh for ...

On June 11, 2025, Disney (including Lucasfilm, Marvel, and 20^th Century Studios) and Universal Pictures (including DreamWorks) filed a Complaint for direct and secondary copyright infringement in the Central District of California against artificial intelligence (“AI”) firm Midjourney for its alleged “calculated and willful copyright infringement”. This suit marks the first time major Hollywood studios have taken the enforcement of their copyrights into their own hands and directly gone after a generative AI company.

In the suit, the studios attack Midjourney for ...

On June 11, 2025, in likely the most significant ruling of the longstanding feud between the social media website, Reddit, Inc., and the founder of its notorious “WallStreetBets” subreddit community, Jaime Rogozinski, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (Case No. 24-735) affirmed a district court’s dismissal with prejudice of Mr. Rogizinski’s lawsuit alleging that Reddit continued to infringe upon the “WallStreetBets” trademark.

The principal issue in the Ninth Circuit’s ruling was the ownership of the trademark at issue, the starting point for any ...

On April 15, 2025, after jurors found a line of dolls from the toymaker, MGA Entertainment, Inc. (“MGA”), infringed the trade dress rights of a pop group owned by music artists Clifford "T.I." Harris and Tameka "Tiny" Harris, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Case No. 2:20-cv-11548-JVS-AGR) granted entry of an approximately $71 million judgment in favor of the Harrises. In the same order, however, the Court denied the Harrises’ motion for a permanent injunction enjoining MGA’s continued infringing use of the trade dresses at issue after ...

On April 30, 2025, the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Fintiv, Inc. v. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (No. 23-2312), issued on April 30, 2025, upholding the invalidation of Finitiv Inc.’s (“Finitiv”) mobile wallet patents related to cloud-based transaction systems based on the Court’s finding that the patents were indefinite because they described the result of the invention instead of the process to achieve the result.

Fintiv sued PayPal for infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 9,892,386; 11,120,413; 9,208,488; and 10,438,196. The parties’ dispute centered on how the term ...

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. § ...

            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 ...