Steve Brachmann

Former Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Coke Morgan Stewart, has joined the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) as President and CEO, effective today. Stewart most recently served first as Acting Director (January 20, 2025, through September 18, 2025) and then as Deputy Director (September 18, 2025, through July 31, 2026) of the USPTO, before announcing her departure mid-term last month. In an email sent to USPTO executive staff on July 27, Stewart informed the Office that she would be leaving the Office to return to the private sector.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Second Circuit issues a summary order affirming that copyright infringement claims filed by Xinuos against IBM are time-barred; Nvidia announces an AI infrastructure plan in partnership with several global investment firms to turn its AI products into an investable class raising up to $500 billion; the nation of Pakistan hails the Federal Court of Australia’s ruling nixing an appeal from India’s agricultural authority appealing the rejection of that nation’s “Basmati” trademark; a bill co-sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley and Maggie Hassan that increases information sharing surrounding allegedly infringing imports unanimously passes the U.S. Senate; and more.

Yesterday, U.S. Magistrate Judge David Horan of the Northern District of Texas entered a report and recommendation urging the district court to deny motions for dismissal or a more definitive statement filed by German software giant SAP in a trade secret case brought by Texas-based enterprise AI developer o9 Solutions. While acknowledging that either side’s theory of the case might ultimately win, Judge Horan found that the burdens associated with SAP’s motions ultimately led to the conclusion that o9’s misappropriation case over supply chain management software should proceed.

Today, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Dental Monitoring SAS v. Align Technology, Inc. vacating a final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which had invalidated patent claims directed to dental arch imaging as obvious. In so ruling, the Federal Circuit rejected the PTAB’s conclusion that a prior art reference was entitled to the priority date of its provisional patent application regardless of whether it provided written description support for the later-filed non-provisional application’s claims as long as that later filing complied with certain procedural, or “ministerial,” requirements.

This week on Other Barks & Bites: the Ninth Circuit reverses the dismissal of malpractice claims stemming from a pattern of missed case deadlines in a trademark infringement proceeding; the Eleventh Circuit becomes the latest regional circuit court to hold that keyword bidding itself cannot constitute trademark infringement; the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issues a precedential ruling clarifying the framework for examining patents based on obviousness-type double patenting concerns; and more.