What Shrinking Patent Budgets Say About the Patent System/ IPWatchdog Unleashed

I keep hearing the same thing from patent professionals across the industry—inside companies, inside law firms, and even from investors. Patent budgets are shrinking, expectations are rising, and nobody seems willing to admit what that combination actually means.

SCOTUS Denies Petition Seeking Review of Second Circuit’s Trademark Co-Ownership Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in Zioness Movement, Inc. v. The Lawfare Project, Inc., a case in which Zioness Movement sought review of a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decision that upheld a jury verdict allowing two competing nonprofit entities to co-own the “Zioness” trademark.

SCOTUS Denial of Lynk Labs Petition Preserves Unpublished Patent Applications as Prior Art in Pre-AIA IPRs

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed by LED lighting developer Lynk Labs to challenge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s ruling last January upholding the invalidation of Lynk Labs’ patent claims. The Supreme Court’s denial leaves in place the Federal Circuit’s determination that U.S. patent applications are prior art as of their filing date in inter partes review (IPR) validity proceedings conducted under the pre-America Invents Act (AIA) statute.

Federal Circuit Says Corrected Inventorship Came Too Late to Revisit PTAB Decisions

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Monday issued a precedential decision holding that the principle of forfeiture can apply even where an intervening  correction of inventorship was granted that would have directly affected the outcome of a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) proceeding. The opinion was authored by Judge Cunningham.

The AI Ethics Waterfall: Disclosure, Governance, and Who’s Really Responsible

From a trickle just a few years ago, AI use in the patent profession has become a rushing torrent. AI tools, features, and applications are now an integral and sometimes invisible part of patent practice. From invention harvesting and prior art searching to drafting, filing, opinion work, litigation, and licensing, the savvy patent practitioner almost certainly has AI embedded somewhere in their workflow.

CAFC Affirms JMOL of Non-Infringement in Blood Sequestration Device Patent Dispute

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision in Magnolia Medical Technologies, Inc. v. Kurin, Inc., affirming a district court’s judgment as a matter of law of no infringement. The court determined that the plain and ordinary meaning of a claim with separately listed limitations requires separate corresponding structures, and because the accused product utilized a single structure for both limitations, it did not infringe as a matter of law.

Squires Orders Appeals Panel to Review PTAB Rehearing Decision Reversing ODP Rejections

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced Thursday that it will convene an Appeals Review Panel (ARP) to examine the issues raised by a 2025 rehearing decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with respect to obviousness-type double patenting (ODP). In Ex Parte Baurin, issued on December 18, 2025, the PTAB denied an examiner’s request for reconsideration of the Board’s November 8, 2024, decision reversing the examiner’s ODP rejections of several claims of US Application No. 17/135,529, directed to antibody-like binding proteins. The Board found that the reference patent the examiner relied upon for its ODP analysis, U.S. Patent No. 10,882,922, was not a proper ODP reference because it was later filed and later expiring than the application in the present case.

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