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.

Red Tape Index (RTI), a project of the regulatory intelligence platform Labrynth, published a patent index today placing the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) below every peer office measured on the price, speed, and openness of the patent system. The Patent Friction Index assigned the United States a composite score of -42.62, a figure that stayed negative under every alternative scoring rule tested.

A conglomerate—a large enterprise comprising multiple discrete companies, divisions, or business units—may come into being organically or inorganically, due to business growth, expansion into new markets, internal restructuring, or a merger, acquisition, or joint venture. Regardless of a conglomerate’s origin story, its leaders face a fundamental question: How should they structure the intellectual property or legal function to optimally serve the needs and interests of the divisions and the conglomerate at large?

Knobbe Martens is seeking a Patent Scientist with a background in physics. Responsibilities include: reviewing new client technologies to determine potentially patentable features, creating technical diagrams and drawings that describe the invention, writing patent applications, including description and claims, with clarity and technical accuracy, and analyzing cited references, developing amendments and arguments, and conducting Examiner interviews. To be successful in this position candidates must be a strong communicator, both written and oral. Candidates must be able to work independently, with a large amount of working freedom. In addition, each candidate will eventually participate in a patent law course and become registered with the USPTO.

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.

As AI assistants take over product discovery and purchase, the likelihood of confusion test is losing the consumer it was built around. And brands are therefore losing their primary line of defense. For decades, building a brand has meant the same, patient work. You develop a differentiated story, then bring it to life everywhere a customer might meet it: Advertising; digital; packaging; product design; customer care. Every piece is guided by consumer insight, a hard-won read on what a person feels at each stage of the journey, from the first moment of awareness through consideration to the purchase itself.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a Federal Register Notice Tuesday announcing administrative updates to the General Requirements Bulletin (GRB). The GRB outlines the scientific and technical qualifications required for admission to the registration examination to practice in patent matters before the Office. The update moves one Category B degree, Biomedical Science, into Category A, broadening the pool of degrees that automatically qualify an applicant to sit for the patent bar exam.

A split U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today denied a request for rehearing or rehearing en banc of a decision issued in February of this year relating to the proper test for determining design patent infringement. In the February precedential decision, the court affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement to Armaid Company, Inc. that its massage product did not infringe Range of Motion Products LLC’s (RoM’s) design patent claims. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham and Chief Judge Moore delivered a dissent in which she claimed her court has caused “the legal frame of reference” in design patent law cases to become “askew.”

Trade secrets occupy a unique position among the major forms of intellectual property. Patents, copyrights, and trademarks are, by design, defined and publicly registered, and can be consulted to determine exactly what is claimed. In contrast, trade secrets depend on their being undisclosed. This creates a structural problem the moment a trade secret owner goes to court. Because they are secret, they cannot be identified in public filings without destroying the very subject matter of the plaintiff’s claim. On the other hand, defendants must understand what the secrets are and what they’ve allegedly misappropriated. In addition, the court needs to know what the case is about to manage it.

In the latest episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed, I speak with Joel Meyer, an IP attorney and innovation strategist with more than 30 years of experience building and monetizing technology portfolios. Our conversation is about moving from patent count to patent value—and using IP strategy to preserve business optionality. That leads to a broader discussion about the role of IP counsel. A young company may not yet know whether its future lies primarily in products, services, licensing, acquisition or some combination of those paths. We discuss why the strongest IP strategies anticipate that uncertainty rather than prematurely narrowing the company’s options, and how AI can give sophisticated IP professionals better information and tools to help innovators build protection around what actually creates competitive value.

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.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in VL Collective IP, LLC v. Netflix, Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that found all challenged claims of a content delivery patent owned by VL Collective IP, LLC (VideoLabs) unpatentable. The court rejected VideoLabs’ argument that the Board misconstrued a key claim term, and found that neither the claim language nor the patent specification supported the narrower reading VideoLabs proposed.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday, August 7, affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision invalidating certain claims of WAG Acquisition, LLC’s patent for a streaming media technology patent as anticipated. Judge Stark authored the opinion of the court. 

On August 4, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) chose to issue a precedential opinion formally holding that there is no “presumption of irreparable harm” in preliminary injunction proceedings in patent cases. The court acknowledged that this conclusion should have been apparent from the 2006 Supreme Court decision in eBay  Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388, 393-94 (2006).

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.