Posts in Podcasts

In the second episode of IP Innovators, host Steve Brachmann sits down with Chris Agrawal, Managing Partner at Bookoff McAndrews, to explore a career that spans from physically thumbing through paper patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to piloting generative AI tools in a modern, cloud-first law firm. Chris Agrawal’s story is one of transformation—not just personal, but systemic, as the practice of patent law adapts to technology at every level.

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.

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.

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

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.

In the previous installment of the Cooler Wars, we explored how patents protect the functional aspects of a product and where those protections fall short. YETI, a well-established brand known for its premium outdoor products, initiated legal action against RTIC, a newer competitor, alleging in part that RTIC’s products too closely resembled YETI’s distinctive designs. One aspect of their dispute stemmed from YETI’s efforts to protect the unique visual identity it had cultivated in the highly competitive cooler market: their trade dress, which is our focus today.

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.”

Fashion is a more highly commercial field than other creative pursuits, such as film or music, which have a much longer shelf life. Fashion is produced to be purchased now. The fashion market relies both on IP protection and creativity in establishing brands and new products, and sometimes it can be difficult to draw a line where “borrowing” morphs from an accepted practice to an improper or illegal use.

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?

In today’s global economy, the importance of international patent protection cannot be overstated. Your invention could be conceived of with a workforce distributed across several continents. Your manufacturing could occur in Asia or India, while your products are shipped into and distributed from ports in the target markets of the world’s largest economies. Competitors and infringers could be next-door neighbors or perhaps across the pond. But as you’ll learn today, there is no such thing as an International Patent – no one global patent that protects you everywhere. If you want to protect your rights in a particular country or jurisdiction, you need to get a patent in that particular country or jurisdiction.

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.

In the inaugural episode of IP Innovators, Steve Brachmann sits down with Paul Hunter, Partner and Electronics Practice Co-Chair at Foley & Lardner, to explore nearly three decades of transformation in IP law—from the analog era of faxes and dictaphones to the cutting-edge use of AI in patent prosecution today.

Picture this: It’s a scorching summer day. You’re at the pool, cold drink in hand, music playing, with your gear lined up. The cooler, the chair, the Bluetooth speaker. For a lot of people, that cooler is a YETI. Or is it? A decade ago, if you looked closely, you might’ve noticed an almost identical cooler, same shape, same rubber latches, but a different name: RTIC. And it was half the price of YETI, as they advertised widely. Behind the insulated walls of those premium containers was a much hotter fight over patents.

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.

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.