Posts in IPWatchdog Articles

I have been to China several times over the past decade. Each time, I came back with the same reaction: too many people in the United States are still badly underestimating what is happening there. I do not say that as a political statement. I say it as a practical one. There is still a surprisingly common view in American business circles that China’s patent activity is mostly noise. Too many filings. Too much subsidy. Too little real innovation. The implication is that, yes, China may be filing a mountain of patents, but most of it can safely be discounted. I think that view is becoming harder and harder to defend.

IPWatchdog is happy to announce several leadership promotions to support its continued growth and strategic expansion. Renée C. Quinn has been named President, Katarzyna Kryca has been promoted to Senior Vice President, and Morgan Connell has been promoted to Director of Programs and Strategic Partnerships. Founder Gene Quinn will continue to serve as Chief Executive Officer.

For decades, management scholars and practitioners have grappled with what I call the “knowledge problem” in organizations—the stubborn difficulty of codifying and transferring expertise that resides in individual employees’ heads and habits. The most valuable organizational knowledge has always been tacit: the judgment calls, the contextual adaptations, the intuitive “feel” for how things get done. This knowledge walked out the door every evening and, more problematically, departed permanently when employees moved to competitors.

A March 27, 2026, petition filed by Security First Innovations (SFI) does more than challenge a single reexamination proceeding—it shines a spotlight on a structural vulnerability in how post-grant review is functioning in practice. At its core, the filing argues that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is allowing what amounts to a procedural end-run around the statute, which is supposed to streamline post-grant challenges and lead to estoppel if the patent owner prevails.

This week in Other Barks and Bites: the EU’s GPAI Signatory Taskforce convenes a second meeting to focus on copyright issues like mitigating infringing AI outputs; Meta and CoreWeave extend their AI cloud partnership through 2032 with a new deal worth $21 billion; and more.

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.