Avery Dennison Corporation is a multinational manufacturer and distributor of pressure-sensitive adhesive materials, apparel branding labels and tags, RFID inlays, and specialty medical products. The company is a member of the Fortune 500 and is headquartered in Mentor, Ohio.
Aéropostale Inc., is an American shopping mall–based retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally aimed at young adults and teenagers. Aéropostale maintains control over its proprietary brands by designing, sourcing, marketing, and selling all of its own merchandise. The company sells via Aéropostale stores in the United States and through its e-commerce site.
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or contribution to the prior art, often through hardball legal tactics Patent trolls often do not manufacture products or supply services based upon the patents in question. However, some entities, which do not practice their asserted patent, may not be considered "patent trolls", when they license their patented technologies on reasonable terms in advance.
The Tetris Company, Inc. (TTC) is the manager and licensor for the Tetris brand to third parties. It is based in Nevada and is owned by Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov and Henk Rogers. The company is the exclusive licensee of Tetris Holding LLC, the company that owns Tetris rights worldwide.
Amiga, Inc. is a company that used to hold some trademarks and other assets associated with the Amiga personal computer.
The multinational technology corporation Apple Inc. has been a participant in various legal proceedings and claims since it began operation and, like its competitors and peers, engages in litigation in its normal course of business for a variety of reasons. In particular, Apple is known for and promotes itself as actively and aggressively enforcing its intellectual property interests. From the 1980s to the present, Apple has been plaintiff or defendant in civil actions in the United States and other countries. Some of these actions have determined significant case law for the information technology industry and many have captured the attention of the public and media. Apple's litigation generally involves intellectual property disputes, but the company has also been a party in lawsuits that include antitrust claims, consumer actions, commercial unfair trade practice suits, defamation claims, and corporate espionage, among other matters.
Vringo was a technology company that became involved in the worldwide patent wars. The company won a 2012 intellectual property lawsuit against Google, in which a U.S. District Court ordered Google to pay 1.36 percent of U.S. AdWords sales. Analysts estimated Vringo's judgment against Google to be worth over $1 billion. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned the District Court's ruling on appeal in August 2014 in a split 2-1 decision, which Intellectual Asset Magazine called "the most troubling case of 2014." Vringo appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Vringo also pursued worldwide litigation against ZTE Corporation in twelve countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Malaysia, India, Spain, Netherlands, Romania, China, Malaysia, Brazil and the United States. The high profile nature of the intellectual property suits filed by the firm against large corporations known for anti-patent tendencies has led some commentators to refer to the firm as a patent vulture or patent troll.
A copyright troll is a party that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through strategic litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, sometimes without producing or licensing the works it owns for paid distribution. Critics object to the activity because they believe it does not encourage the production of creative works, but instead makes money through the inequities and unintended consequences of high statutory damages provisions in copyright laws intended to encourage creation of such works.
Lodsys, LLC was an American patent holding company located in Marshall, Texas that brought patent infringement lawsuits against a variety of companies in the US. Numerous app development enterprises have accused them of "patent trolling".
James Rodney Gilstrap is the Chief United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. He is notable for presiding over more than one quarter of all patent infringement cases filed in the nation and is often referred to by various sources as the country's single "busiest patent judge."
Rambus Inc. v. NVIDIA Corporation was a patent infringement case between Rambus and Nvidia. The case was heard in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
The smartphone wars or smartphone patents licensing and litigation refers to commercial struggles among smartphone manufacturers including Sony Mobile, Google, Apple Inc., Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, Motorola, Huawei, LG Electronics, ZTE and HTC, by patent litigation and other means. The conflict is part of the wider "patent wars" between technology and software corporations.
Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is the general title of a series of patent infringement lawsuits between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics in the United States Court system, regarding the design of smartphones and tablet computers. Between them, the two companies have dominated the manufacturing of smartphones since the early 2010s, and made about 40% of all smartphones sold worldwide as of 2024. In early 2011, Apple began litigating against Samsung in patent infringement suits, with Samsung typically filing countersuits with similar allegations. Apple's multinational litigation over technology patents became known as part of the smartphone wars: extensive litigation and fierce competition in the global market for consumer mobile communications.
FTC v. Actavis, Inc., 570 U.S. 136 (2013), was a United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court held that the FTC could make an antitrust challenge under the rule of reason against a so-called pay-for-delay agreement, also referred to as a reverse payment patent settlement. Such an agreement is one in which a drug patentee pays another company, ordinarily a generic drug manufacturer, to stay out of the market, thus avoiding generic competition and a challenge to patent validity. The FTC sought to establish a rule that such agreements were presumptively illegal, but the Court ruled only that the FTC could bring a case under more general antitrust principles permitting a defendant to assert justifications for its actions under the rule of reason.
Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 572 U.S. 545 (2014), is one of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions issued on April 29, 2014 regarding patent lawsuit fee-shifting. The Supreme Court essentially made it easier for courts to make the loser pay for all attorney costs if the lawsuit is regarded as frivolous. In other words, "the Supreme Court's decision grants judges more leeway to crack down on baseless claims."
Google has been involved in multiple lawsuits over issues such as privacy, advertising, intellectual property and various Google services such as Google Books and YouTube. The company's legal department expanded from one to nearly 100 lawyers in the first five years of business, and by 2014 had grown to around 400 lawyers. Google's Chief Legal Officer is Senior Vice President of Corporate Development David Drummond.
Star Athletica, LLC v. Varsity Brands, Inc., 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a U.S. Supreme Court case in which the court decided under what circumstances aesthetic elements of "useful articles" can be restricted by copyright law. The Court created a two-prong "separability" test, granting copyrightability based on separate identification and independent existence; the aesthetic elements must be identifiable as art if mentally separated from the article's practical use, and must qualify as copyrightable pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works if expressed in any medium.
TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC, 581 U.S. ___ (2017), was a United States Supreme Court case concerning the venue in patent infringement lawsuits.
Open source license litigation involves lawsuits surrounding open-source licensed software. Many of the legal rights of open source software licensors enforceable against users violating licensing agreements are untested by the U.S. legal system. Free and open source software (FOSS) is distributed under a variety of free-software licenses, which are unique among other software licenses. Legal action against open source licenses involves questions about their validity and enforceability.
SharkNinja, Inc. is a Chinese product design and technology company based in Needham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1994 by Mark Rosenzweig and led by CEO Mark Barrocas, who joined the company in 2008 as President, the company's name is formed by combining its two primary brands: Shark and Ninja.
