In the final session of IPWatchdog LIVE 2026 on Tuesday, March 24, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Deputy Director Coke Morgan Stewart had a conversation with IPWatchdog Founder and CEO Gene Quinn in which she confirmed the Office is paying attention to the recent surge in ex parte reexamination filings and also said she is “optimistic” that the pending Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) will be finalized. 

Nearly every operating company valued at greater than $20 billion in market capitalization is likely to be accused of patent infringement at some point. The high likelihood of utilizing another person or company’s patented technology led to an explosion of patent litigation activity over the last 30 years. Often, inventions emerge without a specific product in mind, and the strategy for the invention-turned-patent lacks a clear vision. This has been the way of invention since the patent offices were first formed and legal IP protection became a constitutionally ordained government program.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday granted the Solicitor General’s motion for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument in Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. v. Amarin Pharma, Inc., a case concerning induced patent infringement in the pharmaceutical skinny label context. The order followed the filing of a merits response brief by Amarin on March 20, defending the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decision that found Amarin plausibly alleged that Hikma Pharmaceuticals actively induced infringement of patents covering uses of Amarin’s cardiovascular drug Vascepa.

A panel on day one of IPWatchdog LIVE 2026 didn’t mince words: the voluntary patent licensing ecosystem is functionally broken, and the IP community needs to understand why. That was the diagnostic consensus from the panel titled Patent Dealmaking, Monetization & Licensing: An Examination of Capital, Risk, and Deal Flow, moderated by Brian O’Shaughnessy (Dinsmore & Shohl) and featuring Michael Gulliford (Soryn IP Capital), Louis Carbonneau (Tangible IP), and Dan Kesack (WTW Insurance).

Nixon Peabody is seeking a Patent Agent with technical experience in one of two areas: AI-driven software and FinTech platforms, including familiarity with patenting innovations in machine learning, automation, and financial technology; and/or Medical Device, Mechanical, Biomedical, and Electrical Engineering, with experience drafting and prosecuting patents in hardware, electromechanical systems, or regulated medical technologies. Candidates with a strong background in either area are encouraged to apply. A hybrid work schedule is available for this position.

Nixon Peabody’s Intellectual Property Practice Group is seeking to hire a patent attorney to join its Chicago, IL, or Washington, DC, office. This position also has the flexibility to work remotely.

Although I am not an attorney, I have been deeply enmeshed in the patent process as an inventor for three decades. And I have grown an appreciation for your profession that is perhaps deeper than most folks’. The majority of my work over the past 30 years has been in AI and machine learning. And I want to share some thoughts with you today about how all of this intersects and how you, everyone in this room, are really the last line of defense that humanity has in maintaining what it means to be human. 

As artificial intelligence adoption accelerates across both commercial and government sectors, traditional contracting frameworks are being stretched beyond their limits. That tension was the focus of a panel at IPWatchdog Live 2026 today, featuring Judge Ryan T. Holte of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims; Stephanie Curcio, co-founder and CEO of NLPatent; and TJ Whittle, Legal Counsel at Anduril Industries.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order list denying a petition for writ of certiorari filed by inventor Noah Healy to challenge rulings upholding a patent examiner’s subject matter eligibility rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 101 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Healy’s pro se petition challenged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s decision to affirm the examiner’s rejection as violating the meaningful review requirements of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) due to conflicting statutory theories on patentability that were never sufficiently explained by the agency.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision on Friday in Apple Inc. v. International Trade Commission, affirming a final determination that Apple violated Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930. The CAFC determined that the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) correctly concluded that Masimo Corporation and Cercacor Laboratories, Inc., proved that Apple violated Section 337 through the sale and import of certain Apple Watch models, ultimately “finding no error in the Commission’s domestic industry determination, its validity rulings, or its infringement findings.” The CAFC also held that the asserted patents were not unenforceable due to prosecution laches.

On day one of IPWatchdog LIVE 2026, panelists discussed the global IP landscape, the economics of patent portfolios, patent dealmaking and the ins and outs of drug patent critiques, before U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) Judge Pauline Newman and Retired CAFC Judge Paul Michel introduced the recipients of their respective eponymous awards for 2026.

The current U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) leadership has made its position on serial patent challenges crystal clear. USPTO Director Squires warned that “even extremely strong patents” cannot survive repeated rounds of review. See NPRM Comments (10/16/2025)…. Once again, Director Squires and Deputy Director Stewart are right on the mark. Allowing excessive serial challenges to patents is unfair to patent owners and undermines the patent system.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the Federal Circuit okays the U.S. International Trade Commission’s flexible analysis of the technical and economic prongs of the domestic industry requirement; the University of California tops the National Academy of Inventors list of top universities obtaining U.S. utility patents last year; the EU’s highest court rules that first requests for data access under the General Data Protection Regulation may be excessive if part of a systemic pattern of entering data claims for compensation; and more.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires stated in his Senate confirmation hearing last year that “with born strong patents and robust quality marks we can reclaim America’s primacy, revitalize industry and growth, proudly export our culture, boost national security and improve our lives.” If the goal is to have “born strong patents”, we must be honest about what is born with patents and what is not. For instance, a credible mark of novelty is born with every patent—that much is clear. However, novelty is not just technical newness—it is also market impression. If novelty were only technical newness, people would own patents without their technology ever being used in the market. There would be no point to the patent system. This means that the rest of patents—their assertion power, damages recovery power, term limitation, claim bundling provision, inter partes review (IPR) fee requirement, and more—must also be part of the birth. This is how to create born strong patents.

The latest chapter in the long-running saga of inventor Gil Hyatt is beginning to unfold. The current fight is over prosecution laches—and whether the doctrine even exists. In his last appeal to the Federal Circuit, Hyatt argued that prosecution laches is not available in Section 145 proceedings because it is inconsistent with the Patent Act of 1952, as confirmed by recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014) and SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products (2017). Whether Hyatt is correct about prosecution laches being inconsistent with the 1952 Patent Act, it is clear that the Supreme Court has unequivocally ruled in both Petrella and SCA that laches simply does not exist when there is a statutorily prescribed timeframe to act.