For most of the last two decades, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office offered its electronic filing system (EFS), through which practitioners could file patent applications and related prosecution documents, and private...more
The advice to practitioners faced with marginally relevant prior art has long been "when in doubt, cite it." There was a small cost for the applicant (or practitioner) to cite such art by filing an information disclosure...more
To help you stay on top of the latest news, our AI practice group has compiled a roundup of the developments we are following. ...more
3/5/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Elon Musk ,
Innovative Technology ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventions ,
Inventors ,
Machine Learning ,
Microsoft ,
Nonprofits ,
Patent Applications ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Robots
It is hard to overstate the impact that large language models (LLMs) with chat-based interfaces, including ChatGPT and Bard, have had since their respective launches. These models are changing the high tech, education,...more
They may have known that it was coming. Over the last several weeks, lobbying organizations and high-tech blogs have been slowly introducing the same old false, misleading, and deceptive arguments against patent law. These...more
On April 18, 2023, we submitted a Supreme Court amicus brief expressing our encouragement for the justices to rule on the question of whether it is proper for an artificial intelligence (AI) to be an inventor on a patent...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) organizes its examining corps into technical centers (TCs). Each TC is dedicated to one or more general technical fields. In some cases, one TC may include two or more unrelated...more
When boiled down to a fundamental level, all technologies are double-edged swords. A spear can be used to hunt game or to wage war. A hammer can be used to build a shelter or to murder fellow humans. Social media can be...more
There is ample evidence that patent examiner allowance rates vary dramatically from examiner to examiner and art unit to art unit.[1] This has resulted in the general understanding that there are "easy" examiners and "tough"...more
The talk of the Internet these days (with spillover into traditional media) is ChatGPT, a large language model that is capable of producing remarkably human-like text. Trained on millions of human language documents, ChatGPT...more
On December 29, 2022, to the relief of many practitioners and applicants, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office delayed the effective date of its controversial incentivized transition to DOCX format for patent application...more
In a ruling that should surprise absolutely nobody, the Federal Circuit rapidly scrapped an appeal of a PTAB decision that affirmed a 35 U.S.C. § 101 rejection of a business method claim. This is the latest in a series of...more
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) established its Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in September 2012. As mandated by the America Invents Act, the PTAB conducts administrative trials, such as inter partes...more
In an order that is clearly less impactful and damaging than a number of opinions that the Supreme Court has disgorged in the last two weeks, the justices have denied certiorari in American Axle & Mfg. Inc. v. Neapco Holdings...more
7/1/2022
/ CLS Bank v Alice Corp ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Denial of Certiorari ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Patent Applications ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patent-Eligible Subject Matter ,
Patents ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 101 ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
USPTO
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office handles hundreds of thousands of patent applications per year, as well as various types of administrative patent proceedings. While the USPTO has made incremental improvements in its...more
Patent examiners have a hard job. They are given a relatively short amount of time in which they are supposed to thoroughly review a patent application, search for relevant prior art, and write a well-reasoned Office...more
CosmoKey asserted U.S. Patent No. 9,246,903 against Duo in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging infringement. The District Court found the patent's claims to be ineligible under 35 U.S.C. § 101...more
Diamond v. Diehr, decided by the Supreme Court in 1981, seemed to establish a bedrock principle of statutory construction for patent law. The Court stated that "[t]he 'novelty' of any element or steps in a process, or even...more
A computer does just three things: receives information in the form of bits, transforms this information, and provides output based on the information as transformed. The receiving may take place by way of various types of...more
This article is Part II of a study on the patent eligibility of graphical user interfaces. Part I was published yesterday. We continue from where we left off, with overviews of a handful of Federal Circuit § 101 decisions...more
August 27, 1890 -
WASHINGTON D.C. The ups and downs of Mr. Thomas A. Edison's inventions related to electrical lighting continue. After his U.S. Patent No. 223,898 for an "Electric Lamp" was found to be valid in the...more
On January 7, 2019, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published updated examination guidance, instructing the examining corps and the PTAB how they should apply 35 U.S.C. § 101. On the same day, the USPTO also published...more
One final 35 U.S.C. § 101 case inched across the finish line at the end of 2018. And while this one is not particular remarkable substantively, its concurrence from a particularly opinionated judge may give it an unwelcome...more
Machine learning is more than just a buzzword. It represents a fundamental shift in how problems are solved across industries and lines of business. In the near future, a machine learning library may become a standard part...more
The Patent Trial and Appeal Broad (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has often been criticized for being particularly harsh when reviewing appeals of claims rejected by an examiner of grounds of patent-ineligibly...more