Other Barks & Bites for Friday, May 16: USPTO Wants Comments on E-Commerce Counterfeiting; Bayh-Dole Coalition Honors Faces of Innovation; Google Takes Top Spot in U.S. Patent Filings for Generative AI

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This week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO announces a roundtable and asks for comments on the OECD’s E-Commerce Guidelines; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit corrects the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s improper legal standard for conception in a patent interference proceeding; data from IFI CLAIMS shows that Google has overtaken IBM for the leading position among U.S. patent applicants claiming generative AI inventions; Microsoft makes new commitments to unbundle its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software bundles from Teams in response to EU antitrust scrutiny; the UK’s House of Lords use an obscure procedural mechanism to remove a provision from the UK’s data bill that would require AI companies to disclose their use of copyrighted content; the European Patent Office issues a study detailing a virtuous cycle between the use of technical standards during patent examination and the future adoption of patented technologies into standards; the Bayh-Dole Coalition celebrates the 45th anniversary of the Bayh-Dole Act’s passage by honoring the Faces of Innovation; and a Northern California magistrate judge orders Anthropic to answer allegations that its briefing in a copyright infringement case included a hallucinated citation.

Bites

USPTO to Hold Roundtable on OECD E-Commerce Guidelines – The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Friday, May 16, published a Federal Register Notice (FRN) requesting comment on the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) “Draft Voluntary Guidelines for Countering Illicit Trade in Counterfeit Goods on Online Marketplaces.” According to the USPTO’s press release, the OECD guidelines “are being developed to provide OECD member countries (including the United States), online marketplace operators, and intellectual property (IP) rights holders with insights and best practices for local economies to enhance enforcement against counterfeit products found on online marketplaces.” To that end, the Office will be hosting a public roundtable on June 5, 2025, at the OECD Washington Center in Washington, D.C, to assess stakeholders’ views of the draft guidelines. Written comments responding to the FRN are due June 27, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. ET. 

Google Overtakes IBM for Top Spot in U.S. Patent Applications for Generative AI – On Thursday, May 15, news website Axios reported on data provided by patent analytics company IFI CLAIMS showing that Internet services giant Google had an overwhelming lead among U.S. patent applicants claiming innovations in agentic artificial intelligence (AI), which includes autonomous systems capable of decision-making without human intervention, filing 140 such patent applications between February 2024 and April 2025, nearly twice as many as second-place Nvidia. IFI CLAIMS’ data also shows that Google has overtaken information technologies giant IBM as the top filer of U.S. patent applications for generative AI inventions, although six Chinese companies or universities appear among the top 10 filers for generative AI patents, underscoring the growing strength of China in that field of emerging technology.

UK House of Lords Strips Copyright Transparency Amendment from AI Data Bill – On Wednesday, May 14, members of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords invoked financial privilege to remove a copyright transparency amendment from the data bill currently being debated before the UK’s upper house of Parliament. The provision would have required AI companies to disclose their use of copyrighted content during the training phases of their AI models, with members of the House of Lords voting 297-168 to remove the amendment.

EPO Study Shows Virtuous Cycle Between Patent Filing and Standards Development – On Wednesday, May 14, the European Patent Office (EPO) published a study exploring links between patent filing activity and development of technological standards demonstrating a clear link between the use of technical documents from standards development organizations (SDOs) as prior art during patent examination and the adoption of those patented technologies into technological standards. The EPO’s study also shows that the Unified Patent Court (UPC) was the first-choice forum for standards-essential patent (SEP) owners and standards implementers for one-third of all SEP patent litigation in the EU over the past 19 months, indicating the growing influence of the UPC in settling SEP issues.

Senate IP Subcommittee Mulls Legislative Fixes to Chinese Espionage and Economic Threats – On Wednesday, May 14, the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held a hearing entitled Foreign Threats to American Innovation and Economic Leadership to hear testimony on a wide array of illegal acts sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party to steal research underpinning American innovation and blatantly copy famous American brands to capture global market share for Chinese imitators. Senators on the subcommittee discussed several legislative fixes currently pending before Congress, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) announced that she would be introducing legislation to mandate Congressional reporting from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on the DoJ’s counter-espionage and other intelligence activities regarding China, as well as speed examination at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for patent applications claiming artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing and other emerging technologies.

Bayh-Dole Coalition Honors “Faces of Innovation” on 45th Anniversary of Enactment – On Monday, May 12, the Bayh-Dole Coalition released a “Faces of Innovation” report honoring five individuals who made significant contributions to major medical breakthroughs based on research funded by the federal government and spun-off to private industry under the terms of the Bayh-Dole Act to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the act becoming law. The Faces of Innovation include Jim Dahlberg, who discovered genetic mutations enabling diagnostic testing of colorectal cancer, cystic fibrosis and human papillomavirus (HPV); Vinit Nijhawan, former head of Boston University’s Office of Technology Development; Jennifer Pagán, inventor of energy-efficient systems for disinfecting drinking water using ultraviolet (UV) light; Mark Rohrbaugh, former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Technology Transfer; and Christina Wildfire, inventor of microwave-based devices for converting plastics and carbon dioxide gas into usable energy.

CAFC Corrects PTAB on Conception Versus Reduction to Practice – On Monday, May 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in The Regents of the University of California v. The Broad Institute, Inc. vacating-in-part a patent interference ruling by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), finding that the PTAB improperly conflated the distinct legal standards for conception and reduction to practice in holding that UC Regents could not prove a conception date earlier than Broad Institute’s reduction to practice because UC Regents’ scientists did not have knowledge that their invention would work. However, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s determination that patent applications filed in 2012 by UC Regents lacked written description support and could not be relied upon to prove constructive reduction to practice.

Barks

CRB Proposes Rate Determination for Ephemeral Copies of Digital Recordings – On Friday, May 16, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) published in the Federal Register proposed rates for statutory licenses covering ephemeral copies of digital sound recordings made for transmission by broadcasters pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 114 and 17 U.S.C. § 112. These proposed rates will cover nonsubscription transmissions by commercial broadcasters as well as public broadcasters.

EUIPO Unveils 2025 DesignEuropa Finalists, Lifetime Achievement Winner – On Thursday, May 15, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) announced six finalists for the agency’s 2025 DesignEuropa Awards, including three small business and entrepreneur finalists and another three from industry, and that Dutch industrial designer Hella Jongerius would be honored at this year’s DesignEuropa ceremony with the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Bruker, 10x Genomics Settle Worldwide Patent Litigation with Global Cross-License – On Wednesday, May 14, life sciences companies Bruker and 10x Genomics jointly announced that they would be entering into a global cross-license agreement that would settle all outstanding patent litigation between the two parties ongoing at courts and in administrative proceedings in the United States, the UPC and Germany.

Magistrate Judge van Keulen Orders Anthropic to Answer AI Hallucination Allegations – On Tuesday, May 13, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen of the Northern District of California entered several orders in a copyright infringement suit between AI developer Anthropic and several major music publishers, including directing counsel for Anthropic to respond to allegations that briefing submitted by Anthropic included a citation to a nonexistent scientific article that was hallucinated by the generative AI model used to create the brief.

Seventh Circuit Affirms Dismissal of “All Dis Music” Suit Over Copyright Ownership – On Monday, May 12, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a nonprecedential disposition in Wright v. DJ International Records affirming the Northern District of Illinois’ dismissal of copyright claims filed by Kenneth Wright after Wright failed to show that he filed a termination notice to reclaim ownership of the copyright to his work “All Dis Music,” which was copyrighted in 1986 and the subject of a 1987 agreement between Wright and DJ International Records’ predecessor-in-interest Pop Star Publishing.

USPTO Begins Accepting Petitions for Cancellation Through TTAB Center – On Monday, May 12, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office announced that the agency had established a new option for filing petitions for cancellation with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) through the new TTAB Center system, two months before such petitions will no longer be accepted through the Electronic System for Trademark Trial and Appeals (ESTTA). 

This Week on Wall Street 

Microsoft Commits to Unbundling 365 Software Suites from Teams App in EU – On Friday, May 16, representatives from software services giant Microsoft Corporation made new commitments to regulators from the European Union that the company would unbundle both its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites from its Teams workplace communication app in response to growing antitrust scrutiny in the EU over the inability of Teams users to export data to competing products.

Quarterly Earnings – The following firms identified among the IPO’s Top 300 Patent Recipients for 2024 are announcing quarterly earnings next week (2023 rank in parentheses):

• Monday: None
• Tuesday: None
• Wednesday: Baidu, Inc. (131st); Medtronic plc (27th); Zoom Video Communications, Inc. (t-211th)
• Thursday: Analog Devices, Inc. (204th); Intuit Inc. (t-215th); Lenovo Group Ltd. (74th)
• Friday: None