Posts in Artificial Intelligence

On January 23, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a petition from Stephen Thaler, who seeks copyright protection for a work created by his artificial intelligence (AI) system. The DOJ argued that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit correctly upheld the United States Copyright Office’s refusal to register a copyright for an image that was admittedly created without human authorship.

On January 22, the Human Artistry Campaign, on behalf of a broad cross-section of the American creative community, launched a new advocacy campaign, titled “Stealing Isn’t Innovation.” The campaign’s core message is a direct protest against the “illegal mass harvesting of copyrighted works” by large technology companies to build and train their Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) platforms.

In the most recent episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann sits down with Stephanie Curcio, CEO and co-founder of NLPatent, to unpack how AI is reshaping prosecution, search, and the overall workflow across patent professions. Curcio, who began her career in traditional patent drafting and prosecution, explains how early concept-based AI search tools convinced her the profession was on the verge of a seismic shift.

Much of the focus on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been on training data ingestion—the moment when AI “steals” from creators. But legally, that’s not where the real fight should be. Decades of legal precedent—from search engines to image?scanning to streaming media—already give us a roadmap. No new formulation of copyright law by Congress, as suggested by some academics, is necessary. By considering these seven unique aspects of GenAI systems, copyright analysis is actually easy.

On day one of 2026, we asked IP stakeholders to give their predictions for the year ahead on the IP front. From copyright and fair use to patent reform and USPTO operations, here is what they had to say about what to expect in the New Year.

This year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted several important patents claiming important innovations in 6G networks, generating reliable map data for autonomous vehicles and pest-resistant genetically modified crops. With a new year just days away, we hope the following list of the top 10 patents of 2025 sparks interest in the state of global innovation as we reach the final stages of the year.

As 2025 draws to a close, the intellectual property ecosystem faces a wave of transformative changes driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving legislative priorities. From sweeping federal proposals aimed at harmonizing AI governance and overriding state laws, to new copyright and media integrity measures designed to address deepfakes and transparency, and finally to renewed momentum behind patent eligibility and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reform, these developments signal a pivotal moment for innovators, rights holders, and policymakers alike. This article explores three critical fronts shaping the future of IP: federal AI legislation and executive preemption, copyright accountability and media integrity, and the year-end outlook for patent reform—each redefining the balance between innovation, protection, and compliance.

Each year IPWatchdog surveys the IP community to get their thoughts on what the biggest moments in IP were that year. Some years, the comments vary greatly depending on respondents’ practice or perspective. Other years, there are clear winners for what mattered most that year, and 2025 fits this bill. With a few outliers for big trademark moments, the comments below almost exclusively highlight U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires’ and Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart’s aggressive approach to reining in Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceedings and the various court decisions on artificial intelligence (AI) and copyright that have come down.

On December 19, Google LLC filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against SerpApi, LLC, alleging violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The suit centers on claims that SerpApi, a “scraping” service, unlawfully circumvents Google’s technological barriers to scrape copyrighted content from its search results pages on a massive scale, thereby profiting from Google’s efforts without compensation.

The battle over whether U.S. copyright law permits artificial intelligence (AI) training on copyrighted works is no longer a theoretical debate. In 2025, three federal district court decisions began to sketch the boundaries of what counts as fair use in this context.

Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Peter Welch (D-VT) have introduced a bill to streamline the copyright registration process for visual artists, such as photographers, illustrators and graphic artists. According to a press release issued by Blackburn yesterday, “the [copyright] registration process is so bureaucratic and complicated that the time and expense of compliance is too high for high-volume creators like photographers, illustrators, and graphic artists.”

In a Progress Statement published Monday, the UK Government said that its ongoing consultation on copyright and AI has drawn over 11,500 responses, 10,112 of which were submitted via an online survey service, and that 88% of those who responded online supported requiring licenses to use copyrighted works for AI training in all cases.

As AI adoption accelerates, it is crucial that companies act proactively to develop risk, compliance, and ethical frameworks to ensure sustainable innovation and responsible IP use. On the current episode of Understanding IP Matters, Allison Gaul, a registered patent attorney who evaluates digital products with an eye toward intellectual property strategy, value creation, and legal risk, discusses the aggressive landscape of data acquisition by various AI entities.

On December 5, The New York Times Company (the Times) filed a complaint for copyright and trademark infringement against Perplexity AI, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, adding another major lawsuit to the growing wave of litigation against generative artificial intelligence (AI) companies. The Times alleged in its filing that Perplexity engaged in “large-scale, unlawful copying and distribution” of millions of its articles to build its AI-powered “answer engine.” The complaint argued that Perplexity’s products directly substitute for the newspaper’s own content, thereby undermining its business and devaluing its journalism. Perplexity’s conduct “threatens this legacy and impedes the free press’s ability to continue playing its role in supporting an informed citizenry and a healthy democracy,” the Times argued.