The USPTO’s December 4, 2025 memorandum on Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations (SMEDs) seeks to raise awareness of the “underutilized path” of submitting Rule 132 declarations, referred to as “SMEDs”, for supporting §101...more
Section 101 eligibility remains one of the most unpredictable and frequently contested areas of U.S. patent practice, particularly for software, artificial intelligence, and machine learning....more
What’s New: USPTO Embraces Evidence-Driven § 101 Practice - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued two coordinated memoranda explaining how applicants can use Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations...more
Key Takeaways - Easier path to eligibility: The USPTO’s new guidance explains how to use sworn statements (SMEDs) to provide facts showing an invention is eligible for a patent....more
On Dec. 4, 2025, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director Squires issued new guidance to patent examiners and applicants via a pair of memoranda (Guidance) encouraging the use of subject matter eligibility...more
In follow up to the August 4, 2025 guidance and September 26, 2025 In re Desjardins decision, the USPTO recently took another significant step to provide patentees pursuing patent protection additional tools to address patent...more
Every year has its “it” term.In 2025, the crown belonged to AI, and rightfully so. AI dominated the headlines, flooded the USPTO’s dockets, and triggered more §101 rejections than any examiner would care to admit. If you...more
On December 4, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a memorandum to the Patent Examining Corps reinforcing its existing subject matter eligibility framework under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and calling renewed attention to...more
Late last week, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published three memos addressing its latest policies regarding subject matter eligibility. These included “Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations” from Director...more
On December 4, 2025, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Director John Squires issued two memoranda addressing subject matter eligibility and spotlighting an additional pathway to overcome a rejection under 35 U.S.C. §...more
Once upon a time, patent eligibility was not controversial or difficult to understand. Then along came Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, and with it the Supreme Court’s bright idea to replace statutory clarity with metaphysical...more
On November 4, 2025, the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) designated as precedential an appeals review panel (ARP) decision vacating the Patent Trial & Appeal Board’s § 101 rejection of claims...more
From a technical standpoint, everything a computer does involves reading, manipulating, and storing information through microcode instructions that move around 0’s and 1’s. Each operation performed by a processor, such as...more
It has been over a decade since the Supreme Court blessed us with the two-step framework for patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank. First, one must determine whether the claim at issue is...more
On October 31, 2025, Director Squires spoke to the American Intellectual Property Law Association and provided a forceful statement on his view for the direction of patent law. Of particular interest were his comments on...more
With the continued rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the question of how the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “USPTO”) and courts will apply patent-eligibility requirements to AI has been at the...more
Patent applications for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other software-related inventions are often rejected by the US Patent and Trademark Office (Patent Office) as being too abstract and thus ineligible...more
The August 4, 2025 memorandum (Memo) issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) clarifies how examiners should approach subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Importantly, the Memo provides critical...more
Deputy Commissioner for Patents Charles Kim issued a memorandum to three technology centers reminding examiners how subject matter eligibility should be evaluated under 35 USC § 101. These technology centers often handle...more
On August 4, 2025, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released a new memorandum to patent examiners in Technology Centers 2100, 2600, and 3600, providing targeted reminders on evaluating subject matter eligibility...more
The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued new guidance to clarify and improve the evaluation of patent eligibility for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) inventions in order to foster...more
On July 16, 2024, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) announced new guidance for examination of patent applications directed to critical and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI)....more