While the current Trump Administration has based its global trade war on trade imbalances stemming from unfair trade practices of foreign countries, its weapon of choice—increased tariffs—is designed to encourage businesses to relocate manufacturing operations to the U.S., thereby boosting American employment and industrial capacity. The U.S. Trade Representative’s 2025 Special 301 Report, issued on … Continue Reading
Mandatory deference to an agency’s rulemaking may be gone, and numerous commentators fear that the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will drastically alter the legal landscape surrounding agency decisions. But that does not mean that every agency or agency decision is in peril. We explore here the implications of the Loper … Continue Reading
As I wrote last May (here), the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) has begun a pilot program that will allow Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) to issue interim Initial Determinations (IDs) on fewer than all issues in a Section 337 investigation. On January 25, 2022, ALJ Cheney became the first ALJ to utilize the interim ID … Continue Reading
In its 2018 decision in Helsinn Healthcare S.A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., the Supreme Court held that an inventor’s sale of an invention to a third party who is obligated to keep the invention confidential can create an on-sale bar under AIA §102(a). Relying on Helsinn, the ITC’s ALJ Cheney has held, in In … Continue Reading
One advantage of filing a patent infringement complaint at the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) instead of in U.S. District Court is that a Complainant does not need to use the Hague Service Convention process or other treaty to serve the complaint on foreign entities. As explained here, recent ITC decisions expand the methods through … Continue Reading
Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. § 1337 (“Section 337”), gives the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) broad powers to investigate and address unfair acts and unfair competition in the importation of articles into the United States. Most Section 337 investigations address issues of infringement of statutory intellectual property such as … Continue Reading
One of the most common responses to being sued for patent infringement is a petition to the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) challenging the validity of the patent. To avoid duplication of effort, either the Board or the tribunal can defer to the other. According to a recent decision, the U.S. International Trade … Continue Reading
