The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court decision finding that Technology in Ariscale, LLC’s patent for a transmission signal decoding method was ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham.

The Supreme Court rejected equitable defenses of laches in infringement suits, reasoning that by enacting a statute of limitation, Congress left no statutory “gap” for equitable judgments on timeliness. See Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014), and SCA Hygiene Prods. v. First Quality Baby Prods (2017). These precedential holdings should have also governed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) decisions on prosecution laches in Hyatt v. Hirshfeld (2021) and in Hyatt v. Stewart (2025), particularly after the multiple briefings in the Hyatt case on the binding effect of such holdings. Yet, nowhere in these decisions can one find any reasons why the principles in SCA Hygiene and Petrella should be inapplicable for precluding prosecution laches.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Friday affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Paramount Pictures Corporation in a copyright and contract dispute brought by the heirs of the author of the 1983 magazine article that inspired the original Top Gun film. Shosh Yonay and Yuval Yonay, the widow and son of Ehud Yonay, first brought claims against Paramount in 2022, alleging that the sequel Top Gun: Maverick infringed on the copyright of Ehud Yonay’s article, “Top Guns.” The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in 2024 granted summary judgment for Paramount, agreeing that Maverick did not share “substantial amounts of the article’s original expression and that the depicted pilots and their experiences were factual and therefore unprotected by copyright law.

Much of the focus on generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has been on training data ingestion—the moment when AI “steals” from creators. But legally, that’s not where the real fight should be. Decades of legal precedent—from search engines to image?scanning to streaming media—already give us a roadmap. No new formulation of copyright law by Congress, as suggested by some academics, is necessary. By considering these seven unique aspects of GenAI systems, copyright analysis is actually easy.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is urging the White House to turn a proposal he floated into an Executive Order that would weaken the economy and cost the government tens of billions of dollars in foregone tax revenue. It’s bad policy, and even worse politically. The Trump Administration would be wise to reject it. Secretary Lutnick is convinced that the government is being short-changed when academic institutions make patentable inventions under federal grants, which are primarily licensed to entrepreneurial small companies that take great risk and expense to turn them into real-world products. The Secretary wants the government to seize 50% of the royalties that universities receive when resulting products are sold—sales that bolster our economy while promoting public well-being. 

On day one of 2026, we asked IP stakeholders to give their predictions for the year ahead on the IP front. From copyright and fair use to patent reform and USPTO operations, here is what they had to say about what to expect in the New Year.

This year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) granted several important patents claiming important innovations in 6G networks, generating reliable map data for autonomous vehicles and pest-resistant genetically modified crops. With a new year just days away, we hope the following list of the top 10 patents of 2025 sparks interest in the state of global innovation as we reach the final stages of the year.

While being realistic and practical in IP law is usually prudent, it’s a helpful exercise to now and then articulate one’s fantasies for a perfect world in order to gauge what topics come up most often. This year, as in years past, clarity on patent eligibility law remains high, while protections for an improvement of AI tools takes second. Some of the wishes below have little chance of coming true in 2026, but others may be granted—here is what our participants would like to see happen for IP in the new year.

On Monday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced that the agency has established a Standard-Essential Patent (SEP) Working Group to develop and deliver meaningful policy solutions on SEP-related issues. The working group, which will report to USPTO Director John Squires, will play a role in advancing the Office’s engagement with patent remedies and enforcement in furtherance of the pro-innovation stance the agency has taken on SEP cases before the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) and in U.S. district court.

Global litigation over standard essential patents (SEPs) is facing new strategies by implementers, mainly related to venue selection. There is an increasing risk of foreign decisions aimed at interfering with decisions on infringement of patents granted and issued in foreign jurisdictions – in clear tension with the territoriality principle. There is also a trend of abuse of process in the selection of venues within specific countries aimed at creating obstacles and delaying remedies and effective protection for national IP rights.

IPWatchdog has been using real images of our friends’, colleagues’ and readers’ dogs for our weekly Other Barks and Bites column since the middle of 2024, and have decided to run a “Dog of the Year” contest based on the dogs featured each week. The employees of IPWatchdog have narrowed down the list by choosing our favorites from the year (although we were not allowed to nominate our own dogs). Now, we ask our readers to make the final selection by selecting your favorite dogs for 2024 and 2025. We will announce the “winners” during the first full week of January. Click the link to submit your votes!

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Tuesday affirmed a district court’s summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of SC Johnson & Son Incorporated in a case brought by Zip Top, Inc. The decision centered on the interpretation of a key term in a patent claim for reusable silicone containers. Zip Top appealed a decision from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois that granted summary judgment of non-infringement to SC Johnson. Zip Top had asserted that SC Johnson’s Ziploc Endurables products infringed United States Patent No. 11,383,890, which discloses a process for making a container from molded silicone.

As 2025 draws to a close, the intellectual property ecosystem faces a wave of transformative changes driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and evolving legislative priorities. From sweeping federal proposals aimed at harmonizing AI governance and overriding state laws, to new copyright and media integrity measures designed to address deepfakes and transparency, and finally to renewed momentum behind patent eligibility and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) reform, these developments signal a pivotal moment for innovators, rights holders, and policymakers alike. This article explores three critical fronts shaping the future of IP: federal AI legislation and executive preemption, copyright accountability and media integrity, and the year-end outlook for patent reform—each redefining the balance between innovation, protection, and compliance.

For Section 337 investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), 2025 was a year of contrasts. As one example, the Federal Circuit’s long-awaited decision in Lashify, Inc. v. ITC reduced the burden for satisfying Section 337’s domestic industry requirement, under which ITC complainants must show adequate U.S. investments in practicing or exploiting the asserted intellectual property rights. But this lower threshold did not immediately result in increased Section 337 complaint filings. For much of 2025, uncertainty concerning U.S. trade policy and federal government operations likely depressed ITC complaint filings.

On December 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Ethanol Boosting Systems, LLC v. Ford Motor Company, affirming the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) invalidation of three patents owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and licensed to Ethanol Boosting Systems (EBS). The opinion was authored by Judge Chen and joined by Judges Clevenger and Hughes.