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IPWatchdog.com has been publishing online continuously since 1999. As a result, we enjoy excellent search engine ranking and placement, with articles immediately becoming indexed by the major search engines, including Google. We have always accepted guest contributions for publication, and while that is not changing, our publication rules and guidelines have recently changed. For full transparency, I wanted to explain what has changed and why.

As we do each year, we’re dedicating the last day of December to readers’ comments on what the IP landscape would look like to them if a little thing called reality was not an issue. So, below are our participants’ heartfelt IP wishes for 2025.

The past year has included some monumental developments in the world of IP – and adjacent to IP – that will affect law and practice for years to come. From the Supreme Court’s decision to abrograte the Chevron decision, thereby changing the standard for agency deference by the courts, to movement on some of the most potentially game-changing patent legislation to be introduced since the America Invents Act, there is a lot to choose from when it comes to what mattered in 2024. As we do each year, we reached out to readers for their input on what mattered most to them, and here is what they had to say.

On November 5, 2024, I received an official copy of U.S. Design Patent #D1,050,634 from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  I received a Notice of Allowance for my U.S. Design Application #29888619, titled “Rope Throw Dog Toy” on September 18, 2024, and the patent was issued on November 5, 2024.  And on Friday, November 15, I received my official patent in the mail. This invention was inspired by my dog, Luna, who LOVES to chase balls—especially squeaky ones.

On the final day of IPWatchdog LIVE 2024, Gene and Renee Quinn celebrated the organization’s 25th anniversary with the IPWatchdog team and attendees of LIVE. In a surprise ceremony, Gene Quinn was also presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by his alma mater, the University of New Hampshire (UNH), Franklin Pierce Law School, for his service to and work with the IP community.

On Thursday, May 23, Gene and I attended the Eagle Forum Annual Briefing and Dinner, an event hosted by conservative public policy and grassroots organization Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund. During the event, both Gene Quinn and Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA) were presented with the Phyllis Schlafly Friend of American Invention Award. Prior to the awards being presented, Eagle Forum President Ed Martin sat down with Congressman Kiley for a fireside chat.

On Thursday, May 23, Gene and I attended the Eagle Forum Annual Briefing and Dinner, an event hosted by conservative public policy and grassroots organization Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund. I was so proud of my husband as he, along with Representative Kevin Kiley (R-CA), was honored to be presented with the Phyllis Schlafly Friend of American Invention Award.

If you are on LinkedIn, you undoubtedly get messages, perhaps daily, from some service provider that you don’t know who promises to be able to help you with some pain point. Unfortunately for those marketers who do not take the time to do even basic research, these inquiries often come off as rather pathetic and do little more than demonstrate that you certainly don’t want to work with them, ever. Seriously, if they can’t even read your LinkedIn profile to see what type of work you do, are you really going to trust them with something that matters?

The key to rainmaking for lawyers is understanding that those who have decisional authority to hire an attorney are hiring you. Perhaps, once upon a time, those who hired lawyers were more interested in the name of the firm, but the days of an attorney staying with a firm long term are over. Attorneys move, firms merge or sometimes collapse. What this means is that, as long as the firm you are with is large enough to do the work you seek, your name and reputation far and away supersede the name on the letterhead.

IPWatchdog’s Artificial Intelligence Masters™ wrapped up today with panels exploring how to get AI patents past Sections 101 and 112 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and, ultimately, granted, as well as Ethics and AI. But yesterday’s day-long program also included an award for the latest IPWatchdog Masters™ Hall of Famer, James Pooley, who IPWatchdog CEO and founder Gene Quinn called “the leading expert on trade secrets in the world.”

Today, Judge Pauline Newman celebrates 40 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). Newman was appointed to the court on January 30, 1984, by then-President Ronald Reagan and officially assumed office on February 28, 1984. Newman was the first judge to be appointed directly to the Federal Circuit; all of the standing judges at that time attained their position through the merger of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals and the appellate division of the United States Court of Federal Claims. She filled the Federal Circuit vacancy created at that time by Judge Philip Nichols Jr., who had taken senior status.

Today, a letter signed by a coalition of top academics opposing the Biden Administration’s efforts to exercise march-in rights under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 was sent to the White House. Signed by academics in fields including law, economic policy and sciences, the letter warns the Biden Administration that its efforts to drive down drug pricing by seizing patent rights will “undermine fundamental principles that have made the American IP system the golden standard for supporting domestic innovation.” A growing topic during recent Congressional debates, march-in rights under Bayh-Dole took on a new focus in early December when the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the U.S. Department of Commerce released a draft framework of factors that federal agencies should consider for the exercise of authority codified at 35 U.S.C. § 203 that would compel patent owners holding rights to federally-funded inventions to license those rights to “responsible applicants.”

First, my advice is that everyone should go to this upcoming William C. Conner Inn Annual Dinner and, for that matter, all the Inn’s annual dinners. I have enjoyed them on many levels. One of those is that you get to see and meet people you ordinarily would not, including judges, even if you often see judges. But this one on January 24 is special, because it has a background we hopefully won’t see again. When I received the Dinner announcement, I was shocked that the primary honoree is Chief Judge Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Why? Because of the way she has misled the public about her mistreatment of Judge Pauline Newman. The Inn states that the “Mission of the Hon. William C. Conner Inn is to promote excellence in professionalism, ethics (and) civility.” This is truly admirable, but one which must have been lost, overlooked, or ignored this year.

On day one of the new year, we continue the IPWatchdog tradition of asking readers what they would like to see happen if their every IP wish could come true. Some commenters stuck with more realistic asks, such as for patent eligibility reform to move forward or that an extension of the waiver of IP rights under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) will be opposed. Others went out on a limb by pulling for a new central patent court based in Hawaii or that congress will get its act together, for instance. Of course, the most popular dream articulated below is once again that patent eligibility certainty will be restored, either by the courts or congress.