Posts in Guest Contributors

There’s a great deal of excitement and preparation for the Olympic Games, which will come to Los Angeles and Oklahoma City in 2028. Those of us in Oklahoma City are thrilled to host two events on behalf of LA28, softball and canoe slalom. If you are a business owner in one of these cities, you may be thinking, “How can I capitalize on the Olympic Games coming to my city?” This is the first of several helpful articles in which we will walk you through the myriad of legal issues and opportunities associated with hosting the Olympic Games.

To compete in artificial intelligence (AI) markets, emerging companies must choose one of two routes: the capital-intensive route entails buying compute and datasets to build in-house foundation models and refining them into agents for specific use cases. Alternatively, emergents can license pre-trained models and lease compute to focus on developing applications for the end user, whether that is a solo software developer or an entire business domain.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is going through a significant digital transformation. With the Office seemingly updating its procedures as rapidly as the latest AI model, it’s important to track what this means for IP practice. AI is transforming the tools governing how the Office now processes what is filed, and the Office’s vacillations on AI inventorship should be top of mind for every practitioner.

A patent claim of invention is considered obvious, and thus unpatentable, in light of a combination of prior art references if a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have had a reason, or motivation, to combine the references as recited in the claim. There are responses, or defenses, to such a finding of obviousness, including if the combination renders the reference unsatisfactory or inoperable for its intended purpose – also called “frustration of purpose.

“Should we insource IP work?” This perennial question is posed by in-house professionals and organizational leaders in corporations, universities, and other institutions—and dreaded by outside IP counsel, who fear loss of insourced client business. Deceptively binary and straightforward, the insourcing question often can’t be answered without in-house teams first exploring a host of underlying considerations. Their decision-making calculus may confront grey areas and vexing tradeoffs, ultimately coming down to rough cost-benefit analyses and gut instincts.

To say we live in perplexing times is an understatement. Everything seems to be shifting beneath our feet, often with seemingly little thought. One example is the move to change how the federal government supports research. It wasn’t until the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, which injected the incentives of patent ownership into the system, that the situation changed. And the result was dramatic.

When the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new, easier-to-administer version of a popular cancer medicine called Keytruda a few months ago, patients celebrated. But critics quickly cried foul, accusing the drug’s manufacturer of gaming the patent system to preserve its monopoly and prevent cheaper competitors from coming to market. 

For years, design patent practitioners dealing with graphical user interfaces (GUIs) and icons have been shackled to the ghost of Ex parte Strijland. If you wanted to get a case through the USPTO for a GUI or an icon, you had to meticulously include a broken line depicting a display screen or monitor. Under the old MPEP 1504.01(a) regime, the effect of the GUI was treated essentially as surface ornamentation applied to that specific physical screen to satisfy the “article of manufacture” requirement under 35 U.S.C. § 171.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been asked to grant certiorari to resolve whether the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) permits an unjust enrichment award without any showing of actual loss resulting from the defendant’s misappropriation of trade secrets. The defendant in Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. v. Computer Sciences Corp. has petitioned for certiorari, arguing that actual loss is a prerequisite for an unjust enrichment award. The petition challenges a Fifth Circuit decision affirming a $56 million unjust enrichment award and a $112 million punitive award in favor of Computer Sciences Corp. (“CSC”), measured by the costs Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) avoided through its trade secret theft rather than by any proven actual loss to CSC.

In its recent petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, Google argues that patents can be invalid at any time, even decades after issuance, and therefore should remain open to inter partes review (IPR) challenges, regardless of age or how long they have been relied upon. At first glance, this sounds like a defense of patent quality. Coming from one of the most frequent users of the Patent Trial and Appeal board (PTAB) over the past decade — and arriving just as the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) “settled expectations” doctrine begins to limit late-stage IPR challenges — it raises a sharper question: why now?

A person recently approached me at church with excitement regarding a software process he developed. His company was so pleased with the result that it is filing a patent, listing him as the inventor. This person knew that I had some kind of patent backstory, so he asked for my thoughts. My name is Jeffrey A. Killian, and I am the patent applicant in the Federal Circuit Court case # 2021 -2113 (In Re: Killian). I took no pleasure in telling my  friend at church that his patent application will be rejected. Plus, the official notice will have my precedential case quoted all over his rejection. With friends at church like me, who needs enemies? 

Trademark claims against Netflix concerning its popular “Running Point” comedy series were recently dismissed at the pleadings stage due to a one-letter misarticulation of applicable First Amendment law. The case, soon to be litigated on appeal, highlights the need to clarify the contours of trademark liability arising from creative works. Pepperdine University filed the lawsuit last year against Netflix and co-defendants Warner Bros. and Kaling International, just one week before the “Running Point” series premiere.  Loosely based on the life of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss, the series stars Kate Hudson as the owner of the fictional basketball team the Los Angeles Waves. The popular series, which amassed instant popularity and ranked as Netflix’s #1 TV show, was quickly ordered for a second season that premiered April 23, 2026.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a significant Decision on Remand on Monday, April 27, 2026, clarifying when estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1) attaches and—critically—what it means to “request” a proceeding “before the Office.” The ruling arises from an increasingly common set of circumstances—HID had initially filed an inter partes review (IPR) against CPC Patent Technologies’ U.S. Patent No. 9,665,705, and subsequently requested ex parte reexamination requests of that same patent. Monday’s decision clarifies that a party is estopped from “requesting” ex parte reexam at the moment the IPR final written decision issues when the USPTO has yet to order ex parte reexam.

Most companies entering a joint development agreement are focused on making the project work. What they are less focused on—and what can create serious problems years down the line—is what happens to the confidential information shared during that project once it ends. That’s one of the central arguments Emily Teesdale, founder of Pivot IP, makes in a recent episode of IP Innovators.