Posts in Government

Today, the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) published the third edition of its Congressional Innovation Scorecard, which provides a measure of each lawmaker in the U.S. Congress in terms of their impact on the nation’s intellectual property (IP) system. Although this year’s scorecard acknowledges higher numbers of pro-copyright bills introduced into Congress, it concludes that members of Congress are still failing to engage fully and effectively on national IP issues to the detriment of America’s future as an innovation leader.

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied a petition for certiorari challenging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s (CAFC’s) use of Rule 36 summary affirmances in appeals from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). CPC Patent Technologies petitioned the Court in March of this year asking the Justices to consider the question: “Whether the Federal Circuit can affirm a PTAB decision without opinion in contravention of the clear statutory requirement of an ‘opinion’ when reviewing such decisions.”

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (UPSTO) announced today that it will be extending the Artificial Intelligence Search Automated Pilot Program (ASAP!) until June 1, 2026, to gather additional information and continue evaluating the program’s effectiveness. The Pilot was first announced in October 2025 and is meant to “evaluate the impact of sharing the results of an automated search prior to examination of an application.” 

A number of groups and individuals self-described as “representing consumers, patients, health care providers, and academic experts in pharmaceutical policy and patent law” have submitted a letter to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee urging members to quickly advance the “Eliminating Thickets to Increase Competition  (ETHIC) Act,’’ which was introduced in the House of Representatives last May by Representative Jodey Arrington (R-TX) along with two other Republicans and four Democrats.

Today, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) published a study exploring challenges faced by EU small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in obtaining financing by offering intellectual property (IP) as collateral. Set against the backdrop of the EU’s recently launched Savings and Investment Union (SIU) program, the EUIPO’s study identifies several structural barriers preventing SMEs from obtaining IP-backed financing and concludes with a series of policy recommendations designed to address the SME credit gap and unlock tremendous economic value for the wider EU market.

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.

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.

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.

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. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Monday held the first of three planned Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)-focused Listening Sessions, this one focused on the PTAB and Life Sciences. Participants in the first panel of the day, who mostly spoke for the branded pharmaceutical industry, discussed the topic of patent thickets and the role of the PTAB in vetting life science patents.