Other Barks & Bites for Friday, February 27: UK Trademarks No Longer Within Scope of EU Law Post-Brexit; Second Circuit Reverses Ruling on Concert Rates Under BMI Consent Decree; USPTO Employee Pays $500K to Resolve Conflict of Interest Allegations

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This week in Other Barks & Bites: the EU’s highest court holds that UK trademark rights cannot support opposition proceedings within the EU since the conclusion of the transitional period following Brexit; Merck shuffles its corporate structure in advance of major patent expirations for blockbuster drug Keytruda; the Federal Circuit finds genuine issues of material fact in an inequitable conduct and antitrust claim ruling handed out by the Southern District of Texas; USPTO patent examiner Daxin Wu agrees to pay $500,000 over allegations that she examined patent applications while owning substantial stock interest in the applicants; the Second Circuit finds that the Southern District of New York imposed an unreasonable rate for blanket licenses to BMI’s song catalog to be paid by live concert promoters across North America; the EPO announces the focus of key technical discussions at last week’s patent law harmonization meeting; and the USPTO seeks public comment on the location of community engagement offices to serve the southeastern United States.

CJEU Says UK Trademark Rights No Longer Within Scope of EU Law Following Brexit – On Thursday, February 26, the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU) announced the outcome of a judgment earlier in the month setting aside the judgment of the EU General Court, which had reversed the dismissal of trademark opposition proceedings at the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) filed by a Japanese company based on the use of its own trademark in the United Kingdom. The CJEU had ruled that, because an opposition under EU trademark law requires that legal rights in allegedly anterior trademarks must be maintained throughout the proceeding, the EUIPO was correct to dismiss the opposition as the legal rights to the UK trademarks asserted in the opposition no longer fell within the scope of EU trademark law following the conclusion of the transition period laid out in the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

CAFC Vacates SJ Rulings on Inequitable Conduct, Walker Process Claims – On Thursday, February 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential ruling in Global Tubing LLC v. Tenaris Coiled Tubes LLC vacating summary judgment rulings by the Southern District of Texas in a patent infringement case involving pliable coiled tubing used in the oil and gas industry. The Federal Circuit found that, properly reviewing the evidence in favor of the nonmovant, that an inventor declaration during prosecution including comments related to undisclosed prior art could reasonably be viewed as doubt that the prior art documents were material to patentability rather than clear evidence of intent to defraud, and that Tenaris’ alleged 29% market share was not per se too small to create a dangerous probability that Tenaris might obtain a monopoly as necessary to maintain Global Tubing’s Walker Process antitrust claim.

AG Rantos Urges CJEU to Dismiss of Meta Discovery Challenge in Market Abuse Case – On Thursday, February 26, Advocate General Athansios Rantos issued an opinion advocating that the CJEU dismiss appeals filed by Meta Platforms Ireland challenging a pair of rulings by the EU General Court finding that the EU Commission’s request for internal documents identified by means of electronic search terms were sufficiently reasoned, necessary and proportionate to an investigation into Meta’s abuse of dominant market position through use of Facebook data and the Facebook Marketplace platform. AG Rantos agreed with the General Court that the search terms used by the investigation complied with the principle of necessity from EU competition regulation, and that the use of a virtual data room procedure to regulate access to documents containing personal data was not required for the Commission’s request of documents that do not contain sensitive information.

USPTO Designates Decision on RPIs Informative – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Thursday, February 26, designated as informative a decision by USPTO Director John Squires according a new filing date to a petition for inter partes review (IPR) based on its amendment of the petition to include a new real party in interest (RPI). In Curium US LLC v. Universität Heidelberg, IPR2025-01582, Paper 11 (Director February 25, 2026) (informative), Squires accorded the petition a new filing date after Curium US LLC added Curium US Holdings LLC and its direct parent, Curium Netherlands BV, as RPIs “to moot this issue” after patent owner Universität Heidelberg and The European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) argued that Curium “is owned and controlled by Curium US Holdings LLC and France-based Curium Pharma, all of which share offices at 111 Westport Plz. Dr., St. Louis, MO, and have an interest in the patented technology.” Since Curium updated the petition to include the additional RPI disclosures prior to institution, and in accordance with the statutory timeline, the petition was accorded a new filing date as per Corning Optical Communications RF, LLC v. PPC Broadband Inc., IPR2014-00440, Paper 68, 23 (PTAB Aug. 18, 2015). Squires sent a memo in October 2025 to all administrative patent judges (APJs) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) designating Corning Optical as precedential and informing APJs that the agency was restoring the practice of requiring petitioners before the PTAB to identify all RPIs prior to institution.