The upcoming year presents a range of consequential intellectual property issues across copyright, patent eligibility, design patent law, and pharmaceutical litigation. With multiple matters before the Supreme Court, active legislative reform efforts, and fast‑moving developments in generative AI, 2026 is set to be a pivotal year for creators, technology companies, and patent owners. The following are some of the most significant issues likely to influence strategy, compliance, and innovation in the months ahead.
1. Cox Communications v. Sony Music (U.S. Supreme Court)
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on December 1, 2025, in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, examining secondary copyright liability for Internet service providers (ISPs). The dispute centers on whether Cox is liable for failing to terminate repeat infringers despite receiving millions of infringement notices. The Fourth Circuit vacated parts of lower courts holdings Cox liable for more than $1 billion.
The Justices, during arguments, signaled skepticism toward both parties, questioning Sony’s broad theory that would impose sweeping liability on ISPs, while expressing reservations of Cox’s arguments that would effectively eliminate ISP liability and rendering the DMCA safe harbor meaningless.
This case will likely have significant implications for every copyright holder and business reliant on user‑generated content or network access.
2. Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin (Skinny Label Induced Infringement)
In January 2026, the Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the Federal Circuit’s revived induced‑infringement claims against Hikma for marketing its generic version of Vascepa® with a “skinny label.” Under Section VIII of the Hatch‑Waxman Act, Hikma carved out Amarin’s patented cardiovascular‑risk‑reduction indication, limiting its approval to the unpatented severe‑hypertriglyceridemia indication. Amarin, however, alleges that Hikma’s public statements, calling its product a “generic version” of Vascepa, induced physicians to prescribe it for the patented indication.
The Federal Circuit held these allegations plausible, emphasizing the totality of Hikma’s marketing conduct beyond the FDA‑approved label. The Supreme Court’s review is expected to address the boundaries of inducement regarding generic labels, may reshape “skinny label” jurisprudence, and may significantly raise litigation and compliance risks for generic drug manufacturers.
3. Design Patent Obviousness After LKQ v. GM
In 2024–2025, the Federal Circuit fundamentally restructured design‑patent obviousness doctrine overruling the rigid Rosen‑Durling test and adopting a more flexible approach that amounts to a restatement of KSR, while recalibrating the helpful aspects of Rosen. The en banc LKQ v. GM decision requires applying the Graham factors regarding scope/content of prior art, differences between prior art and the claimed design, and level of ordinary skill, along with secondary considerations. This revised framework reduces the high barrier that previously insulated many design patents from obviousness challenges. Recent USPTO data shows that design‑allowance rates remain stable, and PTAB institutions on design challenges remain low. District courts likewise have not yet invalidated design patents under the new framework. Thus, the long‑term impact remains developing, but practitioners should expect greater unpredictability and more nuanced arguments around visual similarity and functional constraints.
4. Legislative Activity on §101 Reform (PERA, PREVAIL, RESTORE Acts)
Congress is actively considering several bipartisan bills aimed at overhauling subject‑matter eligibility and post‑grant review procedures:
- Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA): Reintroduced in 2025, PERA would substantially rewrite §101, clarifying that most inventions are eligible unless they fall into specific excluded categories (e.g., pure mathematical formulas, mental processes, unmodified natural materials). PERA seeks to eliminate the unpredictable judicial “abstract idea” framework stemming from Mayo and Alice.
- PREVAIL Act: PREVAIL is designed to streamline PTAB review processes, reduce duplicative or serial challenges, and better align PTAB standards with those applied in federal courts.
- RESTORE Act: A companion effort alongside PREA and the PREVAIL Act, the RESTORE Act is designed to enhance patent enforcement and clarify standards for patent validity, particularly benefiting innovators in biotech, diagnostics, and emerging technologies. Its core goal is to ensure that patent rights remain meaningful and enforceable by reducing ambiguity around how patents are evaluated and upheld.
Collectively, these bills represent the most significant congressional efforts in a decade to stabilize U.S. patent eligibility law and strengthen reliability for patent holders.
5. Generative AI and Copyright Law (Key Cases & Developments)
Generative AI systems continue to generate an unprecedented wave of copyright litigation, with many disputes centered on whether training AI models on copyrighted material qualifies as fair use and whether AI‑generated outputs can receive copyright protection.
Major Themes:
- Training Data and Fair Use: Courts are grappling with whether mass ingestion of copyrighted text, images, and audio constitutes a transformative use under the four‑factor fair‑use test. The year 2025 saw the significant Bartz v. Anthropic settlement ($1.5 billion), highlighting financial exposure tied to unlicensed training on pirated datasets.
- Human Authorship Requirement: The U.S. Copyright Office continues to reject copyright claims for AI‑generated content lacking meaningful human authorship. Courts have likewise reaffirmed that copyrighted works must reflect human creativity.
- High‑Profile Media Lawsuits: Media organizations—including The New York Times—have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly training LLMs on millions of copyrighted articles. The litigation also triggered unprecedented data‑preservation orders requiring OpenAI to retain hundreds of millions of ChatGPT user logs, raising privacy and compliance concerns for all AI developers.
- Broader AI Litigation Landscape: Multiple suits (including against OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, Midjourney, and Stability AI) continue to examine infringement theories, DMCA circumvention, derivative‑work creation, and output‑level copying. The legal landscape remains fluid, with appellate courts poised to shape foundational AI‑copyright doctrine in 2026.
