Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Truinject Corp. v. Galderma S.A., affirming a U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware judgment for Galderma S.A. on tortious interference, breach of contract, and trade secret misappropriation claims. The CAFC held that Truinject Corporation forfeited its arguments on appeal about the dismissal of its tortious interference claim and the summary judgment of no damages.

Patent infringement litigation is often discussed in terms of high-profile disputes or headline verdicts. What receives less attention is the cost of getting there. Whether a company is enforcing its patent rights or defending against a claim, the financial impact of patent litigation can be significant long before a case ever reaches trial. For many businesses, particularly those operating in technology-driven industries, patent litigation is no longer just a legal issue. It is a business consideration that can influence strategy, resource allocation and long-term planning.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in ParkerVision, Inc. v. Qualcomm Incorporated dismissing ParkerVision’s appeal from a judgment of non-infringement for lack of appellate jurisdiction. The CAFC determined that a partial final judgment entered under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) was not final, since it resolved infringement of only some claims of a single patent. The CAFC also denied ParkerVision’s request to reassign the case to a different district judge on remand.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday vacating and remanding a district court ruling that had denied Pen-Tech Associates, Inc.’s motion for sanctions and attorney’s fees due to Epic Tech, LLC’s allegedly frivolous infringement claims. The CAFC found the district court had provided “insufficient detail to permit meaningful review.”

On Tuesday, news reports indicated that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a ruling under seal affirming the District of Delaware’s grant of partial summary judgment to Canadian technology company Thomson Reuters on its claims that legal artificial intelligence (AI) company ROSS Intelligence infringed upon more than 2,000 copyrighted headnote summaries of U.S. case law from its Westlaw legal research platform.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires faced the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Tuesday in an oversight hearing pushing for more information on several of the policy changes his administration has put in place. The hearing was the last over which its current Chairman, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), will preside.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an updated memorandum today addressed to all patent applicants and practitioners that provides a flowchart for analyzing Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations (SMEDs) submitted under 37 C.F.R. Section 1.132 and reviews best practices for submitting them. The memo, from USPTO Director John Squires, is an addendum to an April 2026 SMED memorandum and, according to the USPTO, “this memorandum is consistent with existing USPTO guidance and does not announce any new USPTO practice or procedure.”

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, IPWatchdog President Renée C. Quinn spoke with Coke Morgan Stewart. Formerly Acting Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Stewart is now president and CEO of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP). Their conversation, recorded at IPWatchdog’s 2026 Women’s IP Forum, examines what she learned while leading the agency, why she believes the patent system needs legislative reform, and how her experience has shaped her approach to leadership and advocacy.

Using one associate to prepare a claim construction chart and a second to check it is ordinary practice. In In re Brian E. Mitchell, Proceeding No. D2026-16, a patent attorney did the same with two generative AI tools: one to draft proposed claim constructions and a second to review them. Erroneous citations still reached the district court, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) publicly reprimanded him for that.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires has postponed the anniversary celebration scheduled for Tuesday, September 29. In a message sent to invitees from squirescelebration@gmail.com and signed “John,” Squires said his schedule “isn’t cooperating” and called a “rain delay until we can reschedule.” The message provides no new date.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision on September 25 in Zentian Ltd. v. Apple Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that found all claims of a speech recognition patent unpatentable as obvious. The court rejected Zentian’s challenge to the PTAB’s construction of the term “feature vector” and affirmed the determination that codewords in a prior art reference fall within that term.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering whether to impose new requirements on social-media companies, search engines and other online platforms whose advertising systems help impersonation scams reach consumers. In a September 24 Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM), the FTC requested information about platforms’ ad-optimization tools, financial incentives and efforts to prevent fraudulent advertisers from impersonating government agencies and legitimate businesses.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Friday in The Receivership Estate of AudienceScience Inc. v. Google LLC, affirming a ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that granted Google LLC and YouTube LLC judgment on the pleadings on patent ineligibility grounds under 35 U.S.C. Section 101.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Regulatory hurdles lead Oracle to send a force majeure notice related to its New Mexico data center project; the companion bill for the DEFEND IP Act is introduced into the U.S House of Representatives; the European Union Intellectual Property Office announces the first customs enforcement action on a registered CIGI; the Third Circuit finds no material appropriation of copyrightable elements in a case over allegedly copied curriculum between machine learning professors; and more.