This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we explore the age-old question about whether it is best to keep an innovation as a trade secret or if it makes sense to seek patent protection. And while this question is not new, it is a question that has been getting more attention in recent years as patents in the United States become weaker, which makes trade secrets increasingly look like a viable alternative for a host of different innovations in a variety of technology fields. “I have a pretty easy formula that I use to balance the patent versus the trade secret [question],” Arash Behravesh said. “And that is, can it be reverse engineered? How much does it cost the competitor to reverse engineer it? And if we decide to keep it as a trade secret, how long will it be before somebody potentially discloses the information to the public?”

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I began my conversation with Wen Xie by giving her an open mic opportunity to share her thoughts on the state of the industry and she said: “You asked me just now before we started filming, should we be afraid of AI. And my answer is there’s no point in being afraid because it’s coming… AI is coming in every profession, every technology. And we shouldn’t resist it when it comes to patent drafting or patent prosecution.”

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we dive into patent eligibility waters, with a discussion on how patent attorneys and litigators alike can cope with Alice. Our conversation will triangulate patent eligibility from the political perspective, from the perspective of a patent litigator who represents patent owners in federal court, and from the perspective of a patent attorney who represents clients as they attempt to obtain software patents. Joining us this week is the Honorable Andrei Iancu, former Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Vince Rubino, who is a patent litigator with Fabricant in the firm’s New York City office, and from the patent prosecution perspective we have John Rogitz, who is Managing Attorney at Rogitz & Associates.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, we enter the world of patent monetization and patent dealmaking. As you hear the conversation unfold, we discuss the reality that patent deals are getting done. Although the value of the patent deals currently being consummated has not increased in 2025 compared with the last several years, the number of patent deals being done has dramatically increased, which could be the first sign of a bounce in the patent marketplace on the horizon.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, we enter the patent litigation world for a conversation about gaming patent litigation. For too long, popular sentiment has been that patent owners are bad actors simply because they are patent owners. A more nuanced but still grossly overbroad view is that patent owners are not per se bad actors, but if you are a patent owner who has the audacity to enforce a patent against an alleged infringer then you are most definitely a bad actor. Obviously, just being a patent owner does not make one a bad actor, and neither does enforcing a patent against an alleged infringer. But this patent troll narrative has been quite successful

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed I speak with F. Scott Kieff, former Commissioner on the International Trade Commission, and Joshua Hartman, head of Merchant & Gould’s ITC practice group. Our conversation, which took place on June 4, focused on the landmark ruling by the Federal Circuit in Lashify, Inc. v. International Trade Commission, which was a big win for small business patent owners. We discuss the consequences of the Lashify ruling and the politics of the decision, including whether the decision fits within an America First view of domestic and global markets. Kieff also discusses the historical evolution of the ITC, why it was initially created, and how it is purposefully deadlocked politically to require cooperation.

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The premise of the conversation was to identify solutions for a better patent system that would improve the current state of the system without empowering bad actors, such as patent trolls. I begin the conversation offering each of the panelists an open mic to start so they can set forth their preliminary thoughts… Ultimately, Judge Newman reached her conclusion: “I was wrong. We should not have formed the Federal Circuit and taken it away from the regional circuits. Maybe we should have looked elsewhere… And I have a very simple solution. We give the patent cases back to the regional circuits.”

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The topic this week is quantum computers. It is quite a niche topic and finding people who actually know what they’re talking about is not particularly easy, but this is an enormously important topic that we should all know something about because for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to achieve all its full potential, we are going to need much better and much faster computers. And whether it is ultimately quantum computing or whatever comes next, quantum computers are going to be at minimum a bridge to go from where we are right now to where most in the public already think we are in terms of AI sophistication. What are quantum computers and how do they operate? Why are quantum computers necessary for the evolution of AI? Why can’t ordinary computers do what we need to have done? What is the particular advantage of quantum computing versus classical computing power?

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Some who listened to the Squires confirmation hearing last week became concerned—having almost a flashback to everything that has transpired over the last generation leading up to this moment. These patent owners have been kicked again and again, with many having lost everything. And they have seen how the low-patent quality argument insidiously infects debate on patents. So, it is understandable that this group is skeptical. But what does Squires believe? Given how little time Squires was given to speak, and how he was repeatedly asked irrelevant “gotcha” questions, it is impossible to really know what Squires thinks, which is why the responses to the written questions he receives will be extremely important.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed I speak with Allison Gaul who serves as legal counsel for Boston Consulting Group. We begin our conversation with me asking about what she believes are the biggest legal issues in the IP world today. Gaul did identify several things that stay top of mind for her, with various issues relating to data front and center as the top issue. The second area identified by Gaul was open source, and how many of the AI companies promoting “open source” are really not truly open source because often the model, weights and/or training data are not made available, which makes it seem like these companies are racing to gain market share and ultimately “doing a little bit of a switcheroo.” The third and final thing that Gaul identifies as being constantly top of mind is the overall speed of AI development.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we explore whether artificial intelligence (AI) technology has progressed to the point where it has already achieved consciousness. In a nutshell, the answer is our panel of technologists do not believe AI is very close to achieving consciousness, but that it is indeed possible for AI to reach the point of consciousness, and to even reach the point of self-reflection, which would pose an existential threat to humanity.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we have a conversation that was recorded at the end of our AI 2025 program in front of a live studio audience.  Joining me were Stephanie Curcio, Clint Mehall, and John Rogitz, who make up the new IPWatchdog Advisory Committee. They have all been long-time attendees at our events, they often speak on panels, they often written articles for us, and now they will help advise me with respect to programs and continue to provide content for IPWatchdog.com. To jumpstart our conversation, I asked Stephanie, Clint and John if there was anything that they heard during our AI program that was surprising. This led into an interesting conversation about the possible existential threat presented by AI, quantum computing, data protection and trade secrets. 

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed we have a conversation with two shareholders from Wolf, Greenfield & Sacks, PC. Ed Russavage and John Strand were both speakers on our recently concluded AI 2025 program. As the program wrapped up, and in front of a live studio audience, we sat down to discuss the current state of the industry from a client’s perspective, and focused our conversation on IP risk facing companies and what they can do to mitigate that IP risk.

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This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I speak with my long-time friend Jim Carmichael, who is a former Administrative Patent Judge and the founder of Carmichael IP. In this extended 75-minute conversation, Carmichael discusses ten ways the USPTO could and should fix the PTAB, from fully reclaiming institution authority to eliminating expert witnesses in post grant proceedings to presuming the existence of a nexus for secondary considerations.

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This week on this edition of IPWatchdog Unleashed, we speak with Sonja London. Sonia has been general counsel at TactoTek and before that she spent 14 years working for Nokia, where she oversaw Nokia’s consumer electronics licensing, global licensing program for connectivity and video codecs, and was responsible for standardization. Sonja has spent the last year as President of Licensing Executives Society International (LESI), and her time in that role is winding down as LESI’s annual meeting in Singapore approaches at the end of April. Our conversation, which took place April 8, 2025, focuses on intellectual property, globalization, supply chains, licensing and more.

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