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By Bloomberg

In 1973, a plant manager with W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. was testing whether the chemical compound used in Gore-Tex weatherproof fabric could be modified to also make artificial blood vessels.

The manager shipped the material to several researchers, including a Phoenix cardiologist, setting up one of the longest patent disputes in U.S. history. An appeals court ruling Jan. 13 may finally end the case.

The battle over who invented the artificial blood vessel -- and who would get royalties from an innovation that revolutionized the medical field and is still widely used today -- has taken 40 years and involved more than $1 billion in royalties paid to medical device maker C.R. Bard Inc. so far.

One reason such a decades-long saga is unlikely recur is that the laws have been changed to eliminate most of the “who was first” debates and to change the term of patents so there’s less incentive to delay applications.

While patent disputes have been known to last a decade or more -- it took laser inventor Gordon Gould 30 years to get his patents, while Hughes Aircraft Co.’s fight with the government over geosynchronous satellite patent royalties lasted a quarter century -- the Gore and Bard case is notable for both its length and animosity.

The patent fight dates to 1974 when Gore filed the first patent application on behalf of its Flagstaff, Arizona, plant manager, Peter Cooper, who came up with the idea of the artificial vessels.

Six months later, David Goldfarb, the cardiologist credited for being first to develop a functioning artificial blood vessel, filed his own application.

It took 28 years for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and appeals courts to sort through claims and counterclaims and award the patent to Goldfarb. While Cooper may have gotten the concept, they found Goldfarb was first to alter Gore-Tex so it could be used in the human body.

Goldfarb assigned his rights in 1980 to Bard, which will collect about $35 million a quarter in royalties on Gore sales until the patent expires in August 2019.

After almost three decades of arguing that it was entitled to the patent, Gore sought to invalidate it. Even after it lost at the patent office, before a jury and at a U.S. appeals court, Gore was still trying to get the case thrown out.

Meanwhile, the companies competed in the market, where Gore won easily. In a 2009 court order, the judge put Gore’s market share at 62 percent and Bard’s at 28 percent.

The case is Bard Peripheral Vascular v. W.L. Gore & Associated, 14-1114, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The lower court case is Bard Peripheral Vascular v. W.L. Gore & Assoc., 2:13-cv-00597, U.S. District Court, District of Arizona (Phoenix).

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Trademark

Enterprise Prevails Against Europcar in Rental Car Logo Dispute

Enterprise Holdings LLC, the largest car-rental company in the world, prevailed in a trademark dispute in the U.K. against Europcar Group SA of Guyancourt, France, the St. Louis Post- Dispatch reported.

At issue was a Europcar logo incorporating the letter “e” that St. Louis-based Enterprise claimed infringed a mark it has used in the U.K. since 1994 and caused consumer confusion, according to the newspaper.

After the high court in London ruled Jan. 13 that Europcar infringed, the French company told the Post-Dispatch it may file an appeal.

In December, Enterprise terminated an agreement with Europcar that had previously permitted the French company to operate the National and Alamo brands in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, the newspaper reported.

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Copyright

Whoomp! There It Stays: Infringement Decision Survives Appeal

A federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled that the copyright to a song based on a chant used in strip clubs was infringed by a Florida-based music company.

The court affirmed a lower court ruling finding that DM Records Inc. infringed the copyrights to the 1993 song “Whoomp! (There It Is).” According to court filings, the song title refers to “a chant commonly uttered when women disrobed in south Florida strip clubs in the early 1990s.”

Rights to the song, created by the two performers known as Tag Team, were in dispute after the music company to which the copyright had been assigned went through bankruptcy proceedings and was then acquired by DM Records in 1997.

In 2012, a jury in a Texas federal court found that when DM Records acquired Bellmark Music, it didn’t get the rights to the song. The jury found that DM had deliberately infringed the copyright, and awarded damages in excess of $2 million to Alvertis Isbell, who does business as Alvert Music.

The appeals court affirmed the lower-court ruling and rejected DM’s request for a new trial.

The case is Isbell v. DM Records Inc., 13-40878, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The lower-court case is Isbell V. DM Records Inc., 4:07-cv-00146, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Sherman).

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Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Court Dismisses Secrets Case Against Latham & Watkins Law Firm

A trade secrets case against Los Angeles-based law firm Latham & Watkins LLP was dismissed, according to a Jan. 14 court filing.

Mattern & Associates LLC, a Pennsylvania-based provider of support services to law firms, sued Latham in 2013, accusing it of breach of contract and trade secret misappropriation.

The dispute concerned confidential information that Mattern said it provided Latham and that the law firm allegedly disclosed to a third party.

In October, U.S. District Judge C. Darnell Jones in Philadelphia said that Mattern’s complaint contained enough information about the existence of a trade secret, its alleged disclosure and the injury that the disclosure caused for the misappropriation claim to go forward. He also declined to dismiss the contract claim.

At the time, the judge dismissed unjust-enrichment and accounting claims against Latham.

The Jan. 14 notice of dismissal doesn’t disclose any details of a settlement between the parties.

The case is Mattern & Associates LLC v. Latham & Watkins LLP, 13-cv-06592, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).