Posts in International

Red Tape Index (RTI), a project of the regulatory intelligence platform Labrynth, published a patent index today placing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) below every peer office measured on the price, speed, and openness of the patent system. The Patent Friction Index assigned the United States a composite score of -42.62, a figure that stayed negative under every alternative scoring rule tested.

On Tuesday, IFI CLAIMS Patent Services released its annual report on artificial intelligence patenting, IFI Insights: Inventing AI. According to the report, worldwide AI patent grants reached 107,279 in 2025, marking the first time the total has surpassed 100,000 in a single year. The figure also represents an 83% increase over the past three years. Globally, AI patent applications reached 209,518 in 2025, of which 23% related to generative AI and 9% related to agentic AI, which is up from 5% in IFI’s previous study.

Yesterday, the UK Supreme Court issued a ruling in Tesla, Inc. v. InterDigital Patent Holdings, Inc. representing the latest development in UK jurisprudence surrounding fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) obligations on standard-essential patents (SEPs). Applying the reasoning of its landmark SEP decision in Unwired Planet, the UK Supreme Court revived Tesla’s claims that InterDigital’s SEPs to 5G vehicle communications technologies are not being offered on FRAND terms through Avanci’s patent pool and further upheld the jurisdiction of UK courts to decide global FRAND terms.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I speak with Martin Correa. Correa, who leads foresight work at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Correa’s job is not to predict the future of IP, but to consider what futures are possible so WIPO and Member States can be better prepared for whatever eventuality does materialize. And since there is no data about the future—as he puts it—his work uses signals of change, horizon scanning and competing scenarios to expose assumptions and identify the decisions that could push the IP system in one direction or another.

Alden Abbott recently captured Europe’s digital-policy contradiction with a memorable image: Brussels says it wants technology champions, but when a champion emerges, it makes the winner share the trophy. The European Commission’s July 16 binding specification measures (BSMs) against Google turn that metaphor into an administrative program. One measure requires Google to provide eligible search engines—including AI chatbots with search functions—access to anonymized ranking, query, click, and view data. The other requires “free and effective” interoperability with 11 categories of Android functionality, including device sensors, app context, app and operating-system control, on-device AI models, and background execution. Google must furnish documentation and technical assistance and extend access to covered future functionality when it becomes available to its own services.

On December 31, 1959, Calixto Lopez led armed men into the Arechabala family’s rum distillery in Cárdenas, Cuba. The family had made rum there since 1878, building Havana Club into a brand whose English name reflected its success in the U.S. market. According to testimony Ramón Arechabala gave the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2004, Lopez pointed a machine gun at him and announced he was taking over as “Pepe,” the nickname of the company’s president and Ramón’s uncle. The family’s rum business now belonged to the Cuban government.

Yesterday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published a report on the global patent landscape for generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies showing that newly published patent families in the sector increased more during 2024 and 2025 combined than the preceding decade. While the United States has enjoyed greater annual growth rates in published patent families in the sector, six of the top 10 patenting entities are located in China, underscoring the dominant position that country is securing in an incredibly valuable and critical sector of emerging technology.

In any patent dispute, the strength of the patent still matters. But increasingly, it is not the only thing that matters—or even, in some cases, the thing that matters most. That means where a patent dispute takes place cannot be a tactical afterthought or viewed as a choice of federal district courts in the United States alone. This is true today more than ever because despite patents ostensibly being property—at least according to the Patent Act—which tribunal and which judges make the ultimate decisions affecting the patent often matter most of all because patents and patent enforcement have become driven by ideology and the type of fervor normally reserved highly emotionally charged discussions, like religion and politics.

Over the past year, while advising clients on standard essential patent (SEP) matters and following the rapid development of SEP litigation in Brazil, I found myself revisiting a question that foreign clients often ask: Is Brazil really a jurisdiction where patent rights can be effectively enforced? The question is particularly common among technology companies evaluating enforcement strategies across multiple jurisdictions. While Brazil is one of the world’s largest markets, many foreign patent owners remain less familiar with its courts than those of the United States, Europe, China or Japan. Recent SEP litigation provides an interesting lens through which to answer that question.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has materially changed how examiners are instructed to apply the law on patentable subject matter. In March 2026, CIPO replaced its November 2020 practice notice on computer-implemented inventions, medical diagnostic methods, and medical uses. The 2026 notice represents an important development for current Canadian prosecution practice.

Last week, economic consulting firm Cornerstone Research published a report, titled Intellectual Property Litigation: U.S. Trends in Global Perspective, detailing global diversification in patent litigation and indicating that the United States is no longer the dominant forum for patent disputes. This shift away from a U.S.-centric infringement landscape has taken place at the same time that intangible assets now represent the vast majority of corporate value with many intellectual property (IP) owners increasingly choosing trade secret protection for domestic disputes, a trend being driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The United States is the only country in the world where the judiciary forces patent term truncation over unrelated patent families. In Europe, China, and most other nations, the patent laws provide a “novelty only” standard for patent applications filed before the publication of a different earlier filed patent application, and a “novelty and inventive step” standard for patent applications filed after the publication of an earlier filed patent application. The law in virtually every country outside the United States works well using this framework.

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.

To say we live in perplexing times is an understatement. Everything seems to be shifting beneath our feet, often with seemingly little thought. One example is the move to change how the federal government supports research. It wasn’t until the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, which injected the incentives of patent ownership into the system, that the situation changed. And the result was dramatic.