In Arlton v. AeroVironment the Federal Circuit held that section 28 U.S.C. § 1498(a) supplies Government contractors with immunity from liability for patent infringement even if (1) the Government was obligated to award a…
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/ Government Contracting, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
In 2025, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) experienced significant procedural and substantive changes. Under new leadership at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a series of developments reshaped…
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/ Administrative Law, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
Less than a year after holding that generic machine-learning patents are abstract in Recentive Analytics, Inc. v. Fox Corp., the Federal Circuit may be refining where to draw the line on patent eligibility…
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/ Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
The Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Range of Motion Products, LLC v. Armaid Company Inc. highlights a growing dissatisfaction with courts’ broad use of the sufficiently distinct/plainly dissimilar standard to dispose of…
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/ Civil Procedure, Intellectual Property
In 2025, design patent law continued to evolve across institutions, jurisdictions, and borders. It was a busy year for design patent cases at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), with three precedential…
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/ Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
Welcome to the January 2026 issue of Sterne Kessler’s MarkIt to Market® newsletter. As we’ve entered the new year, we’re excited to introduce a new quarterly digest format for MarkIt to Market®…
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/ Art, Entertainment, & Sports Law, Communications & Media Law, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
This year, intellectual property (IP) law and policy directly addressed the realities of generative artificial intelligence (AI). With a new director at the helm, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued new guidance…
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/ Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
Section 337 investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) remain an efficient and powerful tool for American businesses seeking relief from foreign acts of unfair competition, including infringement of…
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/ Intellectual Property, International Law & Trade
Deciding whether to pursue a patent for a technology can be challenging. In addition to a variety of legal considerations, the decision often depends on broader business considerations, such as the relative importance of the…
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/ Administrative Law, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
On January 9, 2026, the USPTO designated four decisions as precedential and nine decisions as informative. And soon after, on January 12, 2026, the USPTO designated one more decision as precedential and another as informative…
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/ Administrative Law, Intellectual Property
For over twenty years, Pantone, through its Color of the Year program, has selected a color (or colors, 2021!) that reflects the latest color influences and highlights how what is happening in our culture, globally, can be…
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/ Communications & Media Law, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
On December 29, 2025, the USPTO announced the formation of a Standard-Essential Patent (SEP) Working Group. The SEP Working Group will be a cross-functional team that reports directly to Director Squires and will be co-chaired…
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/ Antitrust & Trade Regulation, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
2025 has been a year of breaking news, including in the intellectual property space. While AI developments and big court decisions grabbed many of the 2025 headlines, the most immediate and practical changes to U.S. trademark…
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/ Intellectual Property
Welcome to the December 2025 issue of Sterne Kessler’s MarkIt to Market® newsletter. This month, we discuss the changes made this year to U.S. trademark practices from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and what they mean for…
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/ Communications & Media Law, Intellectual Property, Law Firm Marketing, Science, Computers, & Technology
In the mid-2000s, the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) determined that reexaminations would be more consistent and legally correct if performed by a centralized set of experienced and specially trained Examiners…
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/ Communications & Media Law, Intellectual Property, Science, Computers, & Technology
