Hunton Retail Law Resource

On May 2, 2024, the Federal Circuit issued a decision ruling that initiation of an e-commerce website’s procedure to evaluate patent infringement claims subjects the initiating party to personal jurisdiction in the alleged infringer’s home state. Retailers and consumer products companies may wish to consider the possibility of ending up in federal court in a non-preferred venue prior to using one of these programs.

Your product development team spent years designing a product, working out every design detail until it is just right. Your company spent significant time and money marketing the product, shoring up a great reputation for the product and the company that stands behind it. Then, a copycat comes along with a knockoff and starts selling a product that looks eerily similar—or even identical—to yours. When your customers search online for your long-developed and lauded product, the knockoff appears, and at a fraction of the price. You are certainly surprised, and likely dismayed.

Office workers everywhere are familiar with height-adjustable desks. These desks allow workers to raise or lower their work surfaces, and often workers will use a height-adjustable desk to perform tasks while standing instead of sitting. As awareness of the negative health effects of sedentary lifestyles grows, height-adjustable desks have become a common solution to avoid long periods of sitting at work.

Anyone who uses a mobile device knows there are times when hands-free is a necessity. Enter National Products, Inc., a US maker of RAM® Mounts for securely mounting electronic devices—including phones, tablets, laptops and radar detectors—in cars, trucks, bikes and boats, among other vehicles.

Social media can be a minefield of intellectual property issues. The hashtag, for example, began as a searching tool, but now has evolved into its own form of communication. And if a hashtag can include a trademark or otherwise represent a brand, when can you use someone else’s trademark in a hashtag?

Nautilus Inc., which owns exercise brands like Nautilus and Bowflex, and ICON Health & Fitness, which owns NordicTrack among other exercise brands, have been battling over intellectual property for years. ICON recently upped the ante by bringing a complaint to the International Trade Commission, seeking to exclude all imported Bowflex exercise machines from entry into the United States.