Category: Uncategorized

By Michael Borella – If we have learned anything from the last twelve years of patent eligibility jurisprudence, it is that the Federal Circuit continues to find new ways to disappoint.  The Federal Circuit’s recent nonprecedential decision in Oasis Tooling, Inc. v. Siemens Industry Software Inc. is a master class in how not to conduct…

By Michael Borella – The current cultural moment around artificial intelligence has the hallmarks of a moral panic.  The doomsayers warn of job-annihilating robots, misinformation that will corrode democracy, and energy-hungry data centers boiling the oceans one large language model (LLM) query at a time.  The accelerationists, meanwhile, promise us that superintelligent systems will cure…

By Kevin E. Noonan – One of the paradoxically beneficial consequences of the COVID pandemic was that even without the compulsory aspects of the vaccine patent waiver proposed by certain WTO member states (Brazil, India, and South Africa in particular) vaccine makers, especially Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer foreswore exercising their patent rights in favor of facilitating…

By Donald Zuhn – Last month, we reported that the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) had begun requiring that Applicants submit an inventor ID number for every inventor along with each inventor’s nationality for Chinese patent applications filed on or after January 1, 2026 (see “CNIPA Implements Inventor ID Requirement“).  Pursuant to the change in…

By Kevin E. Noonan – A consequence of the Supreme Court’s assault on subject matter eligibility a dozen years or so ago was that the patent defense bar presented the judiciary with ever more stringent standards and extreme if not fanciful positions that resulted in invalidation on Section 101 grounds becoming the default outcome.  Envelopes…

By Joshua Rich – On Friday the 13th, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its decision in Apple Inc. v. Squires, which turned into a Nightmare on Madison Place for Apple’s chances to challenge the use of (now obsolete) NHK/Fintiv factors for IPR institution.  Although the appeal dealt with a narrow…

By Michael Borella – The patent world is no stranger to hype cycles.  We have seen blockchain, NFTs, and the Internet of Things all promised as revolutionary technologies.  But generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) feels different.  It is not just a new technology to patent – it is a tool that its proponents contend can do…

By Kevin E. Noonan – One of the characteristics of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic were the pledges from companies involved in developing vaccines (such as Moderna, Pfizer, BioNTech, and others) not to enforce patents on relevant technology during the duration.  That restraint has long-since vanished (as has the global pandemic effects of the…

By Kevin E. Noonan – Dickens’s Bleak House has long stood as an exemplar for the perils of interminable litigation where no one benefits (except, perhaps, the lawyers; see Jarndyce v. Jarndyce).  In a case already somewhat notorious for its subject matter, Allen v. Cooper (2020), on remand back from the Supreme Court upholding North Carolina’s…

By Donald Zuhn – We previously reported that the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) had begun requiring that Applicants submit an inventor ID number for every inventor along with each inventor’s nationality for Chinese patent applications filed on or after January 1, 2026 (see “CNIPA Implements Inventor ID Requirement“).  Pursuant to the change in CNIPA’s…