Posts in International

The World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO’s) new Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge, adopted in May 2024, would impose additional disclosure obligations on patent applicants under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Specifically, it would require disclosure of traditional knowledge and genetic resources even when those details have no bearing on patentability.

In less than 2.5 years, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has established itself as a hallmark for high-profile patent litigation. This venue is a reality that U.S. companies need to be aware of Why? U.S. companies are “at both sides of the v” before the UPC. Below are the 10 most important questions that define liability risks before the UPC, both from a defendant’s and a plaintiff’s perspective. These questions will be put into perspective and compared to U.S. district court and International Trade Commission (ITC) litigation.

Today, Mrs Justice Joanna Smith DBE of the United Kingdom’s High Court of Justice issued a highly awaited ruling in Getty Images (US) Inc. v. Stability AI Ltd., a case which was expected to have major implications in determining liability for generative artificial intelligence (AI) developers under UK intellectual property law. The 205-page decision, which mainly focuses on Getty’s trademark claim while also clarifying important aspects of secondary copyright liability in the AI context, failed to address certain fundamental questions in large part because Getty failed to raise sufficient evidence to proceed with its claim of primary copyright infringement at trial.

In September 2025, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA), the highest judicial authority of the European Patent Office (EPO), issued its decision in G 2/24. The EBA addressed a procedural question: if a third party (an “intervener”) joins an ongoing appeal, can that party keep the case alive if all the original appellants withdraw? The EBA’s answer was a no. In other words, interveners play only a supporting role in appeal proceedings. They may join an existing appeal, but they cannot take over once the main participants have left the stage.

On Friday, October 10, we hosted an impromptu webinar with the intention of using that conversation as our next podcast. While this is not always feasible, because we do often have PowerPoint slides when we host webinars, this webinar was simply a conversation about a very important recent decision of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) without any slides. The case we discuss is Philips v. Belkin, where after the conclusion of all appeals, the UPC issued the first ever final permanent injunction in a case involving standard essential patents (SEPs). So, our conversation this week is about the impact and ramifications of the UPC’s final decision in Philips v. Belkin. We discussed the UPC’s final decision and permanent injunction in Philips v. Belkin with an in-house attorney from Philips and the litigation team at Bardehle Pagenberg in Germany that represented Philips in this important win. By originally having this conversation as a webinar with a live audience, I was able to incorporate questions from the audience, which you’ll hear periodically throughout the podcast.

On October 7, a coalition of 25 experts in intellectual property and competition law who serve or have served as U.S. judges, U.S. government officials, legal scholars and economists submitted a comment to the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) as part of that agency’s Open Consultation on Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) in order to correct various misconceptions regarding SEPs that have arisen in both scholarly and political debates. The letter from IP and competition law experts underscores the lack of empirical evidence substantiating claims of patent holdup and royalty stacking and highlights cautionary tales from the European Commission’s recent failures to establish SEP rate determination procedures like those proposed by UKIPO.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) launched a consultation on standard essential patents (“Consultation”) in July of this year, with the stated goal of creating “a more balanced system that works for everyone involved – from the innovators who create patented technologies to the businesses that use them to create products we all depend on.” And like the EC and aforementioned agencies of the United States government, the UKIPO takes up the mantle of protecting SME interests. While the Consultation, for the most part, seeks feedback on the solutions being proposed, analyzing the underlying problems purporting to be addressed is equally, if not more, important.

This Monday, Irvine, CA-based memory technology developer Netlist filed a complaint  with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging rampant infringement of its patent rights by dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices manufactured by Samsung, including those used in Google products. The complaint is Netlist’s latest action against Samsung following a breached joint development agreement and two jury verdicts entered in U.S. district court awarding Netlist more than $420 million for Samsung’s infringing memory modules.

The Trump Administration is trying to counter China on nearly every strategic front, from the South China Sea to the factory floor. Yet the Administration, and Congress, haven’t yet done much to address one of America’s biggest vulnerabilities—the steady decline of our once world-class system of intellectual property (IP) rights.

In July 2025, a criminal court in Loja handed down Ecuador’s first conviction for asociación ilícita – or “illicit association” – in an intellectual property case. The investigation revealed that a coordinated group manufactured sneakers and affixed counterfeit labels of brands such as Nike, Puma and Adidas before selling them through a network of local distributors. Three defendants accepted responsibility through an abbreviated procedure; the court found them guilty of the crime of illicit association under Article 370 of the Comprehensive Organic Criminal Code and imposed 12-month prison terms and financial penalties.

Last week, reports surfaced that spokespeople from the European Commission had confirmed the official withdrawal of legislative draft proposals that would have increased the European Union’s (EU) regulatory oversight over both standard-essential patent (SEP) licensing and civil liability of artificial intelligence (AI) products and services. While the decision to abandon these proposals was first made public this February, the EU Commission’s official withdrawal underscores ongoing tensions between the tech lobby and consumer advocates in the AI sector.

Today, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Chris Coons (D-DE), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced a bipartisan bill titled “Block Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors Act of 2025’’(the Block BEARD Act). The proposal is aimed at blocking foreign websites dedicated to piracy from making stolen content available to U.S. users.

In its decision of July 2, 2025, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office in G 1/23 introduced a shift in European patent law’s treatment of publicly available products, especially where their composition is not fully disclosed or reproducible. G 1/23 has broad implications for patent practitioners across all technical fields, as it reshapes the boundaries of what constitutes prior art under the European Patent Convention and affects how publicly available products, product descriptions, and marketing materials, are assessed in determining novelty and inventive step.

Thirty-one artists from across Europe posted videos today urging the EU Commission to “Stay True to the [AI] Act.” The slogan is part of a campaign that criticizes the EU’s implementation of the European Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, which the campaign’s website says “should protect artists” but that the EU is instead “watering down the legislation – failing to hold AI companies to account.”

In the knowledge-based economy, protecting intellectual property (IP) has become a crucial indicator of a nation’s technological and economic development. Latin America is no exception. Examining patent filing flows between Brazil and other Latin American countries offers valuable insights into regional innovation dynamics. Based on data from the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO), this article presents an overview of patent activity from 2002 to 2021, highlighting key technology sectors, international partnerships, the use of fast-track mechanisms, and prospects for strengthening regional cooperation.