You may not realize it, but whenever you purchase a NFL jersey or hat, you are purchasing property which may be the subject of a major intellectual property dispute.

In the 2010 case American Needle v. National Football League (08-661), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the NFL cannot act as one entity when licensing team apparel. The dispute arose after a decision was made by the NFL in 2001 to give Reebox an exclusive 10-year contract to manufacture various pieced of apparel featuring team logos. Prior to that, each of the 32 NFL teams contracted with its own vendors to produce apparel for that particular team. 

Judge Awards $8 million, plus permanent injunctive order

Custom Glass Products of Carolina Inc., headquartered in Salisbury, NC won a judgment against Infini-Lite LLC of Tucker, Ga., for infringing on its patented Decralite grids. The judgment provides a permanent injunction against Infini-Lite for the use of Decralite patents and the Decralite trademark, as well as $8 million in damages. Custom Glass Products was actually the defendant in the case. 

Microsoft, Salesforce.com compete in cloud-computing market

Two software giants are battling it out in the courts, both accusing the other of patent infringement.

Progressive Corp., an auto insurance company, has accused Liberty Mutual, another insurance company, of infringing on patents it holds for automobile onboard monitoring systems. Such systems capture data regarding a driver’s driving habits.

Dow Chemical was awarded $61.7 million in a patent infringement lawsuit against Nova Chemicals Corp. of Canada.

A judge in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware ruled in Dow’s favor after a jury found that Nova Chemicals Corp. infringed on two patents related to strong plastics. Nova Chemical Corp. countered that the patents were invalid due to missing data.

The suit was initially fined in 2005. The final ruling was signed on May 20, 2010.