Apple Inc. urged a U.S. appeals court to force Samsung Electronics Co. to stop copying certain features of the iPhone. “Competing against your own invention in a competitor’s product is irreparable harm,” Apple’s lawyer, William Lee of WilmerHale in Boston, told a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Samsung said a victory for Apple would put an undue burden on manufacturers of complex devices who would have to constantly redesign their products for trivial features. A ban on certain features is the same as a ban on the entire product, said Samsung’s lawyer, Kathleen Sullivan of Quinn Emanuel in New York. “We don’t make features. We make products.”

The case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Inc., 14-1802, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington). The lower-court case is Apple v. Samsung, 12-cv-630, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Jose).

An Indian company that makes mobile phones expanded its complaint with that country’s Intellectual Property Appellate Board with respect to Apple Inc.’s iPhone trademarks, the International Business Times reported. IVoice Enterprises of Erode, India, added the apple logo to its request for deregistration of the Cupertino, California-based company’s trademark registrations, according to the newspaper.

Venkateshwaran Vaiyapuri, iVoice Enterprises operations director, told the newspaper that it is telling Apple “we’re very serious in protecting our intellectual property rights.”

IVoice began selling mobile phones in 2006, before Apple dreamed of making phones, Vaiyapuri said, International Business Times reported.

New Belgium, Oasis Agree To Extend Time for Response to Suit

New Belgium Brewing Co., the maker of Fat Tire amber ale, agreed to give a Texas brewery extra time to respond to a trademark-infringement complaint.

The Fort Collins, Colorado-based brewer sued Travis County Brewing Co. of Austin, Texas, in federal court in Colorado on Feb. 9, complaining that the Texas brewer’s “Slow Ride” beer name infringes.

New Belgium said it has pending applications for “Slow Ride” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and has for several years sponsored a “slow ride” bicycle race as part of promotional efforts for its Fat Tire brand.

The Texas brewer, which does business as Oasis Texas Brewing Co., posted a notice on its website Feb. 18 in which it accused New Belgium of failing to perform a broad enough search for instances of use before it filed its “Slow Ride” applications, and of falsely claiming it had offered to do a collaboration beer with Oasis.

The case is New Belgium Brewing Co v. Travis County Brewing Co, 1:15-cv-00262, U.S. District Court, District of Colorado (Denver).

Telenor Unit Continues to Refuse to Block Pirate Bay Website.

Telenor ASA’s Bredbandsbolaget, an Internet service provider based on Fornebu, Norway, has refused to block subscriber access to the Pirate Bay website, the TorrentFreak anti-copyright news website reported.

Despite a filing by copyright owners against Bredbandsbolaget in Stockholm District Court, the Internet service provider is maintaining that it can’t be held responsible for whatever is carried on its networks, according to TorrentFreak. Because of the ISP’s refusal to settle the dispute, a trial has been set for October to address provider liability, TorrentFreak reported. According to the news website, Pirate Bay is the leading target of entertainment industry actions aimed at unauthorized downloading and sharing of content.

Texas Appeals Court Cuts Jury Award to Universal Health Services

A Texas appeals court cut a $6 million jury verdict won by Universal Health Services Inc.’s Horizon Health unit in a trade-secrets misappropriation case.

The Court of Appeals for the Second District of Texas reversed future-lost-profit damages awarded to Horizon Health, as well as exemplary damages and ordered a new trial on attorney fees.

The case was against Acadia Healthcare. Co. of Franklin, Tennessee, and stems from Horizon Health’s acquisition of Psychiatric Solutions Inc. Some members of Psychiatric Solutions’ Horizon Health unit went over to Acadia. Horizon then filed suit, accusing Acadia and the ex-Horizon employees of trade-secret misappropriation.

A state court jury made a $6.9 million award. The appeals court reversed most of the award and suggested that the Acadia defendants had filed sufficient briefing in the case. The court noted that the defendants filed approximately 29,942 words in the appeal and said, “We recognize this is a complicated appeal, but briefing must end at some point.”

The case is Acadia Healthcare Co. v. Horizon Health Corp., 02-13-00339-CV, Texas Court of Appeals, Second Court of Appeals.

(Source: Bloomberg)