The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Thursday in Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires, affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that found claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 9,354,015 unpatentable. The dispute centered on how the Board construed the claim term “mounted to” in an inter partes review (IPR) brought by Hunter’s Manufacturing Company, doing business as TenPoint Crossbow Technologies.

An Appeals Review Panel (ARP) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s ) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) today issued a decision on sua sponte rehearing reversing a PTAB decision that had itself reversed an examiner’s rejection of claims for obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP). The decision has been designated as precedential and was authored by USPTO Director John A. Squires, PTAB Chief Judge Kalyan Deshpande, and PTAB Acting Deputy Chief Judge Michelle Ankenbrand.

As the institution rate of inter partes reviews (IPRs) has plunged under U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires, parties have increasingly turned to ex parte reexaminations (EPRs) to challenge patents. The number of requests for EPRs has skyrocketed. The number of EPR requests more than doubled between 2020 (198 requests) and 2025 (481 requests). See USPTO Reexam Statistics. Based on the number of requests for EPRs (831) assigned a filing date through Q3 of 2026, we are on track to have more than 1,100 requests for EPRs filed in FY2026. See USPTO Operational Statistics.

Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet, has introduced a bill to designate courtroom 201 at the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building located at 717 Madison Place NW, Washington, DC, as the “Pauline Newman Courtroom”. Room 201 is the main courtroom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).

The patent system makes a promise that has become increasingly conditional. An inventor discloses an invention to the public and, in return, receives a limited right to exclude. On paper, that bargain remains intact. In the real world, however, a patent owner often discovers that functionally the right is only defensible if the infringement is large enough (but not too large), the damages are high enough (but not too high), the portfolio is deep enough, and somebody is willing to finance years of litigation. Our conversation this week for IPWatchdog Unleashed is about what happens after a patent owner has completed the tedious work of understanding what is actually owned and is now ready to pursue a licensing or enforcement campaign.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Wednesday issued an opinion authored by Chief District Judge Cathy Bissoon of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation, affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that Lululemon had shown the challenged claims of Nike, Inc.’s patent to be unpatentable.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published ruling reversing the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona’s entry of permanent injunction for distiller Jack Daniel’s in the long-running trademark case involving VIP Products’ Bad Spaniels dog toy. This latest chapter in the decade-plus-long case remands the decision back to the district court with orders to enter judgment in favor of defendant VIP Products after finding that Jack Daniel’s did not meet its burden to show dilution by tarnishment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Tuesday affirming a judgment of non-infringement entered by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in a dispute concerning generic versions of the topical pain patch ZTlido. The panel of Judges Reyna, Mayer, and Hughes, ruling per curiam, upheld the district court’s construction of the term “dissolving agent” and its determination that Aveva Drug Delivery Systems’ proposed generic product did not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision on Tuesday, authored by CAFC Chief Judge Moore, vacating a district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction (PI) for Socket Solutions, LLC that had barred Import Global from manufacturing, using, selling, offering to sell, or importing into the United States its Neat Socket® product.

Yesterday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued its latest study detailing the economic contributions of industries heavily reliant upon intellectual property rights, concluding that such IP-intensive industries contributed 44% of the United States’ entire gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024. Despite several key findings reflecting the rising value of IP rights to employee wages and job creation, the USPTO’s report noted significant trade deficits run by the United States relative to their foreign counterparts in commodity exports across several IP-intensive industries.

Peter-Anthony Pappas, the former Director of Intellectual Property Policy for the U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, was sworn in yesterday as a Member of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) by ITC Chairman, Brett Doyle. Pappas was nominated by President Donald Trump in June to join the ITC for a term expiring June 16, 2035.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Monday in MPH Technologies Oy v. Apple Inc., reversing a district court’s narrow construction of key claim terms and its finding of indefiniteness. The ruling revives MPH Technologies’ patent infringement claims against Apple, which had been stipulated away following the district court’s adverse claim construction rulings.

The U.S. Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday denied a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by Amazon.com Services LLC requesting that a district court proceeding be stayed pending the outcome of a separate proceeding against Google involving one of the same patents.

What value is a patent that expires before it issues? Until recently, that question seemed wholly academic. In In re Forest, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) answered it directly: A patent that issues after its expiration date has no value; it provides neither exclusionary rights nor provisional rights. In the court’s view, the applicant has no cognizable interest in the patent or the application on which it would be based.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Friday affirming a grant of summary judgment of noninfringement entered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The appeal, brought by the Regents of the University of Michigan against Leica Microsystems, Inc., concerned the construction of claim language describing a “supercontinuum” white light pulse used in fluorescence detection technology.