Steve Brachmann

This week in Other Barks & Bites: Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) indicates that the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act’s language could be changed to address concerns about gene patents; the Seventh Circuit says that Teva plausibly alleged that Eli Lilly breached the terms of a Hatch-Waxman settlemen; and more.

Yesterday, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) published a report on the global patent landscape for generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies showing that newly published patent families in the sector increased more during 2024 and 2025 combined than the preceding decade. While the United States has enjoyed greater annual growth rates in published patent families in the sector, six of the top 10 patenting entities are located in China, underscoring the dominant position that country is securing in an incredibly valuable and critical sector of emerging technology.

As the full Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to hold a major hearing on the state of U.S. patent eligibility law tomorrow, Amy Semet, Associate Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo School of Law, through her affiliation with the IP Policy Institute, has published a research paper providing the first empirical data on subject matter eligibility issues for artificial intelligence (AI) patents asserted in U.S. district court litigation. The research paper finds that not only are AI inventions invalidated at a higher rate than non-AI inventions, but also, unexpectedly, that obviousness invalidations for AI patents are low due to an incredibly high rate of subject matter eligibility invalidations in the sector.

his week on Other Barks & Bites: the Sixth Circuit issued a ruling in favor of office furniture company MillerKnoll in a trademark case over the intellectual property rights to the Bubble Lamp; U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle issued a Section 101 ruling knocking out offline commerce transaction patent claims owned by Wolverine Barcode; the Federal Circuit found that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not violate the CAFC’s mandate on remand after the Board issued new findings on claim limitations disclosed by prior art; the European Union Intellectual Property Office announced that the agency received a record number of applications for EU trademarks during the first half of 2026; and more.

This week, several amicus briefs were filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit supporting defendant-appellees Amgen in an antitrust suit brought by rival pharmaceutical firm Sandoz, which is appealing the dismissal of its complaint by the Eastern District of Virginia. Amici, including former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel, free market institute Washington Legal Foundation, and trade organizations representing the pharmaceutical industry, all strongly urge the Fourth Circuit to dismiss Sandoz’s attempt to circumvent adverse patent rulings with an overly broad antitrust theory that would disrupt the entire U.S. patent system.