IPWatchdog has learned that U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires plans to celebrate one year in office with an event on September 29. To our knowledge, this is the first time a Director has publicly celebrated the one-year anniversary of their appointment. After the original publication of this article Director Squires took to LinkedIn to claim the story was not properly sourced, focusing only on the location of the event. Squires posted: “I dunno there Gene Quinn, time to invest in a new fact-checker. The event’s being held at Ford’s Theater.” The invitation itself (pictured above) clearly and unambiguously says that the event would take place at the Motion Picture Association headquarters. And whether this event takes place at MPA headquarters or Ford’s Theater, questions still remain about who is paying for the event, whether the event is a public USPTO event, what purpose the event will promote, and whether USPTO employees are planning or executing the event.

President and CEO of the Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) and former Acting Director and Deputy Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Coke Morgan Stewart told attendees of IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum today that “we need to get out the paddles and shock the patient” when it comes to the state of the U.S. patent system.

Biological drugs, or biologics, are now a well-established class of therapeutic products worldwide. Unlike conventional small-molecule drugs, which are generally obtained through chemical synthesis and have relatively simple and well-defined structures, biologics are derived from living organisms or produced through biotechnology processes involving living cells. They include, among others, monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, hormones, blood-derived products and advanced cell-based therapies.

Thompson Patent Law is hiring a Patent Attorney for a fully remote position. While we are primarily seeking a full-time hire, we welcome applications from attorneys interested in independent contractor or project-based engagements. This role is designed for an experienced patent attorney who wants consistent, high-quality patent prosecution work, strong internal systems, and a professional environment built around respect, precision, and accountability.

Virginia-based secure network developer Centripetal Networks has filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court for the second time to weigh in on issues related to its patent infringement claims against Cisco Networks’ unauthorized copying of its packet filtering and hacker prevention technologies. In this petition, Centripetal asks the nation’s highest court whether the Federal Circuit erred in affirming a materially different claim construction entered by the district court without giving Centripetal a meaningful opportunity to adjust its infringement position based on the new claim scope.

Recent discussions about artificial intelligence (AI) in legal practice tend to split into two opposing positions. One holds that junior attorneys should not meaningfully use AI because it will interfere with their development and prevent the formation of sound legal judgment. The other holds that AI will replace junior attorneys by eliminating the tasks they traditionally performed. Both positions rest on the same hidden assumption, which is that AI carries a direction of its own and that the profession’s task is to decide whether to accept it or resist it.

African tech funding just had its strongest year since the 2022 peak…. That discipline shows up nowhere more clearly than in due diligence, and increasingly, that due diligence includes a hard look at intellectual property. For African founders raising from U.S. investors, and for U.S. funds evaluating African deals, understanding what actually gets scrutinized is no longer optional. It can determine whether a term sheet survives diligence intact, gets repriced, or falls apart entirely.

Today, the Bayh-Dole Coalition published a report detailing tremendous economic benefits driven by federal funding into American innovation made possible by the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. Looking at the past three decades of available tech transfer licensing data, the Coalition’s report underscores the importance of the Bayh-Dole Act’s decentralization of patent ownership in federally-funded inventions, which has unlocked up to $3.3 trillion in gross economic output for the United States during the study period.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a minute order on September 18, in Perlmutter v. Blanche, staying the lawsuit brought by Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter until December 18, 2026. Judge Timothy J. Kelly pointed to the House of Representatives’ June passage of the Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act, H.R. 6028, which would designate the Register of Copyrights as an officer “appointed by the President” with the advice and consent of the Senate.

A Lanham Act false advertising verdict is not a scientific meta-analysis. It does not pool evidence, weight studies by quality, or resolve heterogeneity. It allocates burdens and asks whether the party carrying one carried it on the record that party chose to build. Read a false advertising judgment for more than that — for what the science shows, for whether the product works — and you will misread it.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in Berkeley*IEOR v. W.W. Grainger Inc., reversing a district court’s grant of summary judgment that a set of profitability-calculation patent claims were eligible under Section 101. The CAFC held that the representative claim is directed to an abstract idea and that the inventive concept identified by the district court, a form of parallel computer processing, is not required by the claim language.

Patent prosecution is often treated as a sequence of discrete tasks: respond to the office action. Amend the claim. Make the argument. Obtain allowance. Move on. Recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decisions show why that model is incomplete. The prosecution record can later shape infringement theories, affect whether a reference qualifies as prior art, and determine whether a statutory avenue for review remains available. The cases arise under different doctrines, but they support one durable conclusion: prosecution is part of the patent’s long-term risk allocation.

Following a July petition for writ of certiorari filed by Kahoot AS! asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) “settled expectations” doctrine for denying inter partes review (IPR) requests is authorized under the patent statute, the PTAB Bar Association and other amici this past week have urged the Court to take up…

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Ninth Circuit finds that a series of Doe plaintiffs did not succeed on the theory that GitHub’s AI-powered coding platform violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) under an output theory; U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires says that U.S. trademark filings have increased 11% compared to the first nine months of 2025; the Protect College Sports Act moves toward a vote on the U.S. Senate floor that will likely happen next week; and more.

Representative Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) has introduced a bill to amend the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act, inspired by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Judge Pauline Newman’s fight to restore her status as an active judge, following a three-year suspension of her duties initiated by CAFC Chief Judge Kimberly Moore.