Gene Quinn

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I spoke again with Fran Cruz, Senior Vice President of IP Solutions for Juristat. Our conversation was about a topic that should be top of mind for every patent prosecution firm, every in-house IP department, and every legal operations professional trying to make sense of the current market for patent related legal work. Where is patent prosecution work going, when does work move from firm to firm, when it does move, where is it moving, and what will firms have to do to win—or keep—the patent preparation and prosecution work?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is moving faster than traditional intellectual property (IP) strategy was designed to handle. The issue is not simply speed, although speed is certainly part of the problem. The deeper challenge is that AI innovation does not fit neatly into the legacy IP operating model. The assets, development cycles, regulatory environment, and commercial pathways are all different. And the value drivers are increasingly distributed across a spectrum of AI-related intangible domains, which include patents, trade secrets, data rights, software architecture, licensing models, and customer contracts.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic talking point in patent practice. It is already being deployed by patent practitioners who understand a simple truth: AI is not a substitute for legal judgment, technical understanding, claim strategy, or client counseling. When implemented properly, AI is a force multiplier. It can compress timelines, improve consistency, reduce low-value friction, provide meaningful portfolio intelligence, and allow practitioners to spend more time on the work that actually requires professional expertise.

This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, I spoke with Brent Bellows, a partner with Knowles Intellectual Property Strategies (KIPS). We discussed a variety of issues including Hatch-Waxman, Orange Book listings, paragraph IV certifications, skinny labels, generic entry, clinical trial costs, regulatory exclusivity, and the enormous financial risk associated with bringing new drugs to market. Gene and Brent explore the tension between public demand for lower drug prices and the need for durable incentives that make high-risk drug development economically viable, particularly for oncology, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, antibiotic resistant bacteria, and other difficult-to-treat conditions. The episode closes with a broader innovation-policy message: patents are not a peripheral feature of drug development—they are a core operating asset that enables private-sector investment, supports breakthrough therapies, and ultimately drives the availability of future generic medicines.

Whether or not the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) wants to admit it, over most of the last generation there has been a secret examination docket. Not surprisingly, such a secret examination docket is strictly prohibited by federal law. A newly filed joint status report in Morinville v. USPTO brings this issue to the fore and underscores the lack of transparency and accountability of secret internal patent review programs at the USPTO. Procedurally, the latest filing seeks to expose the USPTO shadow docket through a new round of discovery, which is currently being considered by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.