The Federal Circuit denied rehearing en banc in Range of Motion Products v. Armaid, preserving the ability of district courts to resolve some design patent infringement cases at summary judgment and to address functionality as part of claim construction. A forceful dissent, however, argues that the current framework has shifted too much of the infringement inquiry away from juries. On August 11, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit declined to revisit en banc its design...

Court holds that famous-mark owners must prove a concrete likelihood of reputational harm—and that parody remains relevant even when used as a source identifier. On August 4, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit handed VIP Products a significant victory in its long-running trademark dispute with Jack Daniel’s Properties, Inc. over the “Bad Spaniels” dog toy. The court vacated a permanent injunction barring VIP’s product and directed the district court to enter judgment for...

Dental Monitoring v. Align Technology clarifies that a patent challenger seeking an earlier prior-art date under AIA § 102(d)(2) must establish substantive entitlement to priority—not merely point to a provisional application in the reference’s priority chain. On August 10, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a significant decision addressing when a patent or published patent application may rely on the filing date of an earlier provisional application for prior-art...