Matthew Grady

Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing are being announced at a rapid pace. At the same time, we’re seeing more and more legal disputes related to these emerging and highly competitive markets. Just this month, xAI sued a former engineer alleging theft of trade secrets tied to its Grok AI platform. Meanwhile, in quantum computing, Japanese scientists cracked the longstanding ‘W state’ entanglement problem, raising new possibilities for teleportation, and making hardware IP more valuable than ever.

While the Alice v. CLS Bank decision has been with us for over 10 years, subject matter eligibility case law still seems to defy predictability.  The recent Contour IP Holding case gives us a new data point and another curve on the road.  In Contour IP Holding, a patented video streaming technology was initially struck down in the district courts as ineligible, only to be revived by the Federal Circuit in a rare 101 reversal.  Standing in contrast to Yu holding those claims to digital photography ineligible, Contour provides insight and an opportunity to save your inventive technology from subject matter challenges. 

When it comes to the IP rights of your competitors, what you don’t know can hurt you. As your company brings new products to the marketplace, you should consider taking steps to ensure that doing so does not infringe on the patent rights of your competitors or other companies. Understanding what is in the patent portfolios of your competitors and the IP landscape in general is key to avoiding surprises and reducing risk when commercializing products. Competitor landscape reviews may also provide valuable insight into your own patenting strategy. To this end, many companies perform so-called “freedom to operate” (FTO) studies with the goal of identifying any potential IP barriers to market entry and the associated risks of future litigation.