Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

This Week in Other Barks & Bites: the Seventh Circuit remands a Schedule A trademark case to determine whether the Hague Convention’s terms on proper service apply to particular Chinese defendants; President Donald Trump criticizes the automotive industry’s alleged efforts to impede consumer choice on auto repairs; he Eleventh Circuit finds no valid copyright termination notice sent in a case involving members of 2 Live Crew; and more.

Harrity & Harrity, LLP is looking for remote (within the U.S.) or local patent professional superstars to prosecute 5G patent applications for leading global technology companies, including numerous Patent 300® companies.

At approximately the same moment that the U.S. Supreme Court handed down today’s landmark ruling in Hikma v. Amarin, the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet began a hearing on balancing medical innovation and access to generic drugs. Much of the hearing’s discussion was focused on proposed patent bills that favor generic drug makers–though whether they would ensure that Americans actually pay less for any drug, branded or otherwise, remains unclear.

The U.S. Supreme Court today issued its decision in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., holding that Amarin failed to “plausibly allege” that Hikma actively induced infringement of its “icosapent ethyl” product,  marketed as Vascepa. The decision, which was originally seen as a so-called skinny label case applying narrowly to the pharmaceutical industry and Hatch-Waxman litigation, scolded the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) for its recent approach and has potentially far-reaching implications for the induced infringement standard across sectors.

The New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) this week filed a reply brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Judge Pauline Newman. The reply brief responded directly to the opposition brief filed by the Solicitor General, representing the Judicial Council of the Federal Circuit, on May 12, which urged the Court to deny review of Newman’s petition.

On April 30, 2026, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John A. Squires issued an updated memorandum on Best Practices for Submission of Rule 132 Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations (SMEDs), “superseding” the December 4, 2025, memos that launched the current iteration of the SMED program. While the April 30 memo introduces no substantive changes to the underlying framework — the principles of the original SMED Examiner Memo, the relevant Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) provisions, and the Alice/Mayo two-step analysis all remain — the update matters to practitioners for at least two reasons: it confirms that SMEDs are actually working, and it signals that the Office intends to refine the guidance over time as practitioners gain more experience with the tool.

ArentFox Schiff LLP is seeking a patent attorney or patent agent with five or more years of experience to join the firm’s Intellectual Property practice in San Francisco. The successful candidate will draft and prosecute U.S. and worldwide patent applications in a client-facing role that requires direct engagement with inventors and scientists. For attorney candidates, this is a non-partnership track position. A bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering, Patent Bar registration, and demonstrated expertise in wireless telecommunications — including 5G/6G and WiFi — are required. Strong written, oral, and organizational skills are essential. Current experience preparing patent applications for Qualcomm is highly preferred, and additional experience in areas such as power devices, analog circuits, medical devices, software, mechanical devices, or 3D printing is a plus.

America’s $150 billion per year private sector investment in biopharmaceutical research and development (R&D) does more than offer comfort. Increasingly, American innovators are curing or effectively eliminating the medical threat from many diseases and conditions. Witness, cures for Hepatitis C, GLP-1s for weight loss, COVID-19 vaccines, and HIV prevention at virtually 100% effectiveness, alongside stem cell therapies, gene editing, and CAR-T therapies for previously untreatable cancers. For those suffering from rare or untreatable disease, as well as chronic conditions, this is an era of unprecedented hope.

Managing patent portfolios requires investment. There are significant costs associated with both building and maintaining patent portfolios, but all too often only a fraction of their potential business impact is ever realized. While obtaining and maintaining weak patents is a real concern, the strength of any particular patent, family or portfolio is not always tied to overall strength. Frequently, the problem is that the organization does not really know what it owns, why it owns what it does own, where patents fit from a strategic perspective, and whether the assets can be credibly used to support any commercial outcome.

The $170 million jury verdict against GoDaddy in its dispute with Express Mobile continues to offer important lessons for companies managing patent exposure, even after the court set aside the jury’s willfulness finding. While the case may not become the landmark post-Halo willfulness decision some initially anticipated, it still underscores a critical reality of modern patent risk: once a company becomes aware of potentially relevant patents, how it responds can matter as much as the patent itself.

For much of the last four decades, American innovation policy has rested on a premise that should be obvious but too often is not: strong intellectual property rights are not an obstacle to competition. Quite the opposite—strong IP rights are the precursor to robust competition. The alternative to a robust patent system is not some frictionless utopia of open competition. The alternative is secrecy, copying, and underinvestment. If patents are too weak, companies will rely more heavily on trade secrets. That means less disclosure, less technical diffusion, and fewer opportunities for others to build upon what has been invented. Weak patents do not democratize innovation—they often bury it. Weak patents also reward copycats who find it far more expedient and financially rewarding to take rather than to innovate themselves. These truths were the main point at the center of my recent conversation with Alden Abbott, Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and former General Counsel of the Federal Trade Commission.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in a precedential decision today affirmed a district court ruling that five AGI SureTrack agricultural technology patents are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. It also vacated the finding of no exceptionality and remanded for further proceedings on whether Farmers Edge is entitled to attorney’s fees under 35 U.S.C. § 285. Circuit Judge Mayer authored the opinion, joined by Chief Judge Moore and Circuit Judge Lourie.

Peter-Anthony Pappas, Director of Intellectual Property Policy for the U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, has been nominated by President Donald Trump to be a Member of the United States International Trade Commission for the remainder of the term expiring June 16, 2026, followed by a term expiring June 16, 2035. Pappas serves as Director of Intellectual Property Policy for the Senate Judiciary Committee under Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is presently the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property (IP) but will be retiring after this year

In the latest episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann sits down with David Hyams, Co-Founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Longship Legal, to explore what it looks like to build an IP practice around business value rather than patent volume. Drawing on a career that spans big law in Boston, in-house roles at Bose Corporation and AOL, and a cleantech startup, Hyams makes a case that the most important questions in IP strategy have nothing to do with patentability, and everything to do with understanding what a company is actually trying to win.