Posts in Artificial Intelligence

In a 2017 IPWatchdog article, I challenged practitioners engaged in patent prosecution: strive to embody the traits of an “IP counselor,” who brings a broader strategic mission and skill set than “just a patent prosecutor.” Likewise, I encouraged clients to retain IP counselors as their counsel of choice. My cautionary advice stemmed from patent prosecution’s vulnerability to complacency and commoditization, such as due to its structured nature and incentives to obtain as many patents as possible. In addition, relative to their peers, many practitioners provide relatively undifferentiated services, limiting their attractiveness to prospective clients and their staying power for existing clients.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today affirmed a summary judgment ruling from the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York finding the claims of a natural language processing patent asserted against Amazon.com, Inc. invalid for being directed to ineligible subject matter. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and CF Dynamic Advances LLC originally brought the lawsuit against Amazon for infringement of United States Patent No. 7,177,798, which discloses a “method for processing a natural language input provided by a user.”

As the AI revolution accelerates and continues to reshape traditional business models, it has triggered a cascade of new legal, regulatory and policy challenges. At the forefront of these emerging issues are a growing number of high-stakes legal battles between content creators and major Generative AI (GenAI) companies behind large language models (LLMs). This article examines key legal themes and critical questions arising from recent developments at the intersection of AI and Copyright law.

The UK Supreme Court today issued a landmark judgment on AI patentability that is likely to impact all software patents going forward. The decision in Emotional Perception v. Comptroller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks primarily held that the approach taken in Aerotel Ltd v Telco Holdings Ltd [2006] EWCA Civ 1371; [2007] Bus LR 634; [2007] RPC 7 (Aerotel) should no longer be followed. Under Aerotel, courts and examiners consider a four-step test for assessing whether a claim is excluded from patent eligibility: 1) properly construe the claim, 2) Identify the actual/ alleged contribution, 3) Ask whether the contribution is excluded and 4) check if the contribution is technical.

On Tuesday, news reports indicated that U.S. Senators Adam Schiff (D-CA) and John Curtis (R-UT) introduced the Copyright Labeling and Ethical AI Reporting (CLEAR) Act into Congress. If enacted as drafted, the bill would establish mandatory reporting requirements for companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) models that are trained using original works that are protected under U.S. copyright law, and would create an additional cause of action for copyright owners alleging that generative AI developers failed to give such notice with respect to their works.

Concord Music Group, Inc., Universal Music Group, and ABKCO Music, Inc. filed a complaint on Wednesday for copyright and Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations against Anthropic PBC, Dario Amodei, and Benjamin Mann in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, adding another lawsuit against generative artificial intelligence companies. The publishers alleged that Anthropic engaged in mass piracy by downloading millions of unauthorized copies of books containing their copyrighted musical compositions from notorious pirate library websites, including Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi). The complaint argued that Anthropic used BitTorrent to acquire these works and subsequently trained its Claude AI models on the stolen content, thereby directly infringing the publishers’ exclusive rights and undermining the music licensing market.

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.