Posts in Government

Many of us have spent our careers defending and promoting our patent system and related policies like the Bayh-Dole Act, which injected the authorities and incentives of patent ownership into the federal R&D system so that resulting discoveries would no longer waste away on the shelves, benefitting no one. While we usually focus on statistics, legal analysis and case studies, sometimes the impact of what we’re doing hits you square in the face. Last week, I was fortunate enough to have that happen and it’s an experience I’ll never forget.

U.S. House Republicans recently introduced legislation that would prohibit entities on federal national security watchlists from receiving or enforcing U.S. patents. The Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) responded with a statement urging Congress to reconsider the bill. The legislation would prohibit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from issuing patents to individuals or entities identified as Chinese military-affiliated organizations.

IPWatchdog’s 2026 Patent Masters Program kicked off Monday with discussions on the state of the international patent landscape and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in creating efficiency gains in patent prosecution and portfolio building, before moving into conversations on Tuesday and Wednesday about monetization, ex parte appeal strategies and how to shape the future of the U.S patent system, among other topics.

At a recent Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing, Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter noted that Congress may need to overturn this year’s unanimous decision in the Cox v. Sony Supreme Court case or create a new “site blocking” regime to force internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to certain internet sites. The only problem? To put it bluntly, she is wrong.

On Monday, an arbitrator issued an order finding that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) violated federal labor law when it eliminated routine and remote telework for non-Patents bargaining unit employees represented by the Patent Office Professional Association (POPA) without first engaging in impact and implementation bargaining.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday reversed and remanded two Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions that had found Google’s patents for improvements to “hotword” detection unpatentable. The opinion was authored by CAFC Chief Judge Moore. “Hotwords” are phrases like “Hey Siri” and “OK Computer” that are used to activate voice assistants. Google’s U.S. patents 10,134,398 and 10,593,330 are directed to improvements that “address the problem of triggering multiple devices with a single hotword” by suppressing the reaction in other devices while the intended device reacts.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in In re Zhengxu He, affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision upholding an examiner’s rejection of claims 1-22 of U.S. Patent Application No. 16/997,933 for obviousness. The CAFC exercised jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. Section 1295(a)(4)(A) and found that substantial evidence supported the Board’s conclusion that the claims would have been obvious based on a combination of two prior art references.

Have you ever drafted a claim set with a second claim that began, “the system of claim 2, wherein…” when you meant to write “the system of claim 1”? It’s embarrassing because every first-year patent attorney knows that a dependent patent claim cannot depend on itself. However, making the error is inevitable when you draft a large number of patent applications. The good news is, if you upload such a claim to today’s Patent Center (where patent applications are filed), you will be provided with the following alert: “The claims appear to contain an improper dependency with at least one claim that depends on a missing or canceled claim. Please review and revise if necessary”. How beautiful is this? Now you can self-correct before your patent application is even filed. Ten years ago, you would have to go back and forth with a patent examiner to correct the error.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Friday in Hafeman v. Google LLC affirming Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decisions (FWDs) invalidating all claims of three related patents owned by inventor Carolyn Hafeman.  The court also dismissed Hafeman’s argument that the inter partes reviews (IPRs) should have been terminated based on the district court’s finding that LG–a real party in interest to the IPRs–violated its Sotera stipulation.

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.

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.

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.

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

On Friday, a series of computer and automotive industry trade organizations representing most of the top filers of inter partes review (IPR) proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court urging the Court to grant Google’s petition for writ of certiorari that ultimately challenges the PTAB’s settled expectations doctrine as developed under the current U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) administration.