Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

WIPO is seeking a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) External Consultant. WIPO aims to significantly expand the use of the PCT system compared to the Paris Convention in the United States of America. To achieve this, WIPO will engage an external contractor for a time-bound consultancy assignment to actively promote and drive the adoption of the PCT system within the user community.

Amicus briefs have now been posted to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) site in Ex Parte Baurin, a 2025 rehearing decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with respect to obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) that is being reviewed by an Appeals Review Panel (ARP). While most of the amici are arguing in favor of the Board’s analysis, one brief submitted by Professors Mark Lemley and Lisa Larrimore Oullette contends that U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) precedent supports the examiner’s rejections and that Allergan’s holding is inapplicable here.

I have spent most of my professional career talking to patent practitioners about AI. For years, the conversation was about whether AI could be trusted, whether it was ready, and whether it would actually change how patent work gets done. I have watched the profession move from skepticism to curiosity to cautious adoption to – in 2026, for the first time – something that feels like acceptance. Questions that once provoked heated debate at conferences now feel almost trite. Nobody is really questioning whether AI has a place in patent practice anymore. The question that has replaced it is harder and more consequential:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Wednesday in Fuente Marketing Ltd. v. Vaporous Technologies, LLC, affirming the decision of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) and holding that the Board correctly dismissed an opposition to a trademark application after finding no likelihood of confusion between the applied-for mark and registered marks.

Arnold & Porter is a leading international law firm with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. The firm delivers sophisticated regulatory, litigation, and transactional services to clients across a wide range of industries. Arnold & Porter is seeking a Senior Manager of IP Prosecution to join its Washington, DC office. This role provides firmwide leadership for the Intellectual Property Prosecution function, overseeing patent and trademark operations and ensuring the delivery of efficient, high-quality support to attorneys and clients.

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a statement of interest (SOI) in an ongoing patent infringement case between consumer electronics giant Samsung and memory systems developer Netlist, which includes counterclaims by Samsung for violations of U.S. antitrust law. The SOI reiterates arguments made by the DOJ in other litigation involving standard essential patents (SEPs), asking the court to render its decision on Samsung’s antitrust claims in accordance with the fact that inclusion in a technical standard does not create a presumption that patent rights create market power.

During its latest “USPTO Hour” webinar, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recapped Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) updates over the last year-plus, including statistics that show drastic changes in the overall institution rate and number of denials of institution for inter partes review (IPR) proceedings. According to the USPTO’s figures (see chart below), in October 2024 the average institution rate was around 65%, whereas in February 2026 the overall institution rate was around 37%.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Tuesday in In re Brian McFadden affirming a decision of the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The CAFC determined that the PTAB correctly found claim 14 of Brian David McFadden’s patent application directed to ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The court agreed that “claim 14 does not contain an inventive concept sufficient to transform this abstract idea into a patent-eligible application.” Since the court affirmed the ineligibility determination, it concluded that it “need not reach anticipation” under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in ironSource Ltd. v. Digital Turbine, Inc. dismissing Israeli software developer ironSource’s appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision to grant mobile app tech developer Digital Turbine’s revised motion to amend patent claims challenged by ironSource in post-grant review (PGR) proceedings. The opinion, authored by Chief Judge Moore, determined that ironSource lacked Article III standing to pursue its appeal because it failed to establish an injury in fact based on Digital Turbine’s veiled threats that its patent claims covered aspects of discontinued ironSource products.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, my conversation with patent broker Louis Carbonneau centers on a fundamental breakdown in the economic engine that has historically driven innovation. While innovation itself has not disappeared, the incentive structure that once enabled a repeatable cycle—innovate, patent, monetize, reinvest—has eroded. Large market participants increasingly operate under a “use now, pay later (if ever)” model, which disproportionately disadvantages individual inventors and smaller entities. As a result, many innovators are unable to sustain continued development beyond an initial breakthrough, leading to a systemic drag on long-term innovation output. This shift is reinforced by a broader cultural normalization of “free” access to intellectual property, which has migrated from the copyright into the patent and innovation industry.

While artificial intelligence (AI) companies have long maintained that copyright law poses a significant barrier to innovation, it’s getting harder for them to make that argument with a straight face. It was one thing to claim that early text-based chatbots were magical boxes that didn’t really depend on the copyrighted works used to train them—a pretense that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. But it’s quite another to make such claims when their systems are spitting out nearly perfect audiovisual renditions of Disney’s copyrighted characters, including Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story, Darth Vader from Star Wars, and Elsa from Frozen. That’s what Midjourney was doing when Disney sued it for infringement, and it’s also what OpenAI was doing when it struck a licensing deal with Disney.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Dometic Corp. v. International Trade Commission, affirming a final determination that Citimarine, L.L.C., and other intervenors did not violate Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The CAFC determined that the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) correctly concluded that Dometic Corp. and Dometic Sweden AB failed to prove a violation through the import of certain marine air conditioning systems. The court affirmed the ITC finding that several claims of the asserted patent are invalid for anticipation and that the accused products do not infringe the remaining claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court today granted certiorari to a petition brought by internet service provider (ISP) Grande Communications Networks LLC, appealing from a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision that upheld a jury verdict holding Grande Communications liable for contributory infringement against a group of major U.S. record labels. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and then vacated the judgment and remanded the case to the Fifth Circuit for reconsideration under the Court’s recent opinion in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment.

If 2025 was the year every IP practice rushed to adopt AI, 2026 is the year the bill comes due — and a striking number of organizations are discovering they have no reliable way to read it. That was the organizing message from IPWatchdog LIVE 2026’s session: The Business Impact of AI in Practice: Calculating ROI in the AI Era.