Posts in Technology & Innovation

Over the past year, while advising clients on standard essential patent (SEP) matters and following the rapid development of SEP litigation in Brazil, I found myself revisiting a question that foreign clients often ask: Is Brazil really a jurisdiction where patent rights can be effectively enforced? The question is particularly common among technology companies evaluating enforcement strategies across multiple jurisdictions. While Brazil is one of the world’s largest markets, many foreign patent owners remain less familiar with its courts than those of the United States, Europe, China or Japan. Recent SEP litigation provides an interesting lens through which to answer that question.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision today in Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. v. Hetero Labs Limited, affirming a preliminary injunction that blocks Hetero Labs Limited from launching a generic version of the neurological drug Nuedexta. The court also vacated a district court order that had excused Otsuka from posting a bond pending appeal, remanding the issue for further proceedings. Circuit Judge Dyk dissented in part from the majority’s claim construction and would have reversed the injunction.

Most patent attorneys know the Jerome Lemelson story—the prolific inventor whose aggressive use of continuation and continuation-in-part applications resulted in some patents remaining pending for decades, earning the label of “submarine patents.” While Lemelson’s tactics sparked controversy and eventual legislative reforms aimed at curbing undue delays, one principle emerged clearly from his experiences: new matter in patent law must receive a new priority date…. To patent applicants, 35 U.S.C. § 132(a) means that the detailed description of their non-provisional patent applications must be perfect when filed, and that even if new information is discovered after filing, no changes can be made. In practice, this is an extremely harsh standard, and is disproportionately punitive to small business inventors who lack the deep pockets to absorb repeated filing costs and years of delay.

The U.S. Supreme Court today granted certiorari in Apple Inc.’s appeal of a civil contempt finding stemming from its App Store dispute with Epic Games, Inc. The case centers on a 2021 injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and a subsequent contempt order tied to Apple’s commission structure on external purchases.

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has materially changed how examiners are instructed to apply the law on patentable subject matter. In March 2026, CIPO replaced its November 2020 practice notice on computer-implemented inventions, medical diagnostic methods, and medical uses. The 2026 notice represents an important development for current Canadian prosecution practice.

Recent developments in ex parte Corteva Agriscience LLC (Reexamination Control 90/019,130; Patent 10,947,555 B2) clarify obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) in the context of patent families with multiple continuations and varying patent term adjustments (PTA)…. In Corteva, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) distinguished Cellect and extended Allergan by holding that a child patent (here, the ’555 patent) is not unpatentable for ODP if it does not expire later than the original patent in the family, including any PTA awarded to the original patent. Below is a figure from Corteva.

Last week, economic consulting firm Cornerstone Research published a report, titled Intellectual Property Litigation: U.S. Trends in Global Perspective, detailing global diversification in patent litigation and indicating that the United States is no longer the dominant forum for patent disputes. This shift away from a U.S.-centric infringement landscape has taken place at the same time that intangible assets now represent the vast majority of corporate value with many intellectual property (IP) owners increasingly choosing trade secret protection for domestic disputes, a trend being driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

The full Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously advanced the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2026” (NO FAKES Act), which would create a federal IP right to an individual’s voice and likeness. The Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to report the bill to the full Senate today. Senator Coons said in his remarks on the bill that with the capabilities of current and future AI technology, a personal right to control one’s voice and likeness is imperative.

It’s easy to take for granted that books, news, films, shows, songs, video games, photographs, artwork, and more are ubiquitously available through apps, streams, downloads and other digital means. But the thriving legitimate digital marketplace we enjoy today didn’t emerge by accident. It was built, in significant part, on the historical bedrock of secondary liability—the well-established common-law legal principle that one who assists another in committing a wrong is just as liable as the direct wrongdoer. In the internet ecosystem, that means platforms, internet service providers (ISPs), and other online intermediaries bear some responsibility when they knowingly facilitate or profit from copyright infringement.

For capital-hungry small businesses and startups, the difference between a pending patent application and an enforceable, issued patent is often the difference between thriving and stalling. Yet the current path to receiving a Notice of Allowance—the final signal of approval from the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO)—remains slow and expensive. Both of these critical problems can be solved by the USPTO right now through a simple but powerful new tool: an Automatic Allowance Option.

Tomorrow, June 17, the Senate HELP Committee will vote on a raft of bills aimed at making medical care more affordable. That’s a worthy goal. But in the case of the Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act, lawmakers are setting themselves—and patients and the rest of us—up for failure. The legislation seeks to prevent drug companies from gaming the patent system by holding these firms to new disclosure and certification requirements. How the bill is supposed to save patients money is far from obvious. What is more, there are already laws against the kind of abuse the legislation targets. And there is little to suggest those rules aren’t working.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced late Monday that it is designating as informative a decision based in part on USPTO Director John Squires’ recent memo outlining additional discretionary denial factors the Office will consider with respect to institution of inter partes review (IPR) and post grant review (PGR) proceedings. Specifically, the decision found that Tesla, Inc.’s evidence of manufacturing activities in the United States, “including that it manufactures the accused products in America,” favored a finding that discretionary denial is not appropriate.

The United States is the only country in the world where the judiciary forces patent term truncation over unrelated patent families. In Europe, China, and most other nations, the patent laws provide a “novelty only” standard for patent applications filed before the publication of a different earlier filed patent application, and a “novelty and inventive step” standard for patent applications filed after the publication of an earlier filed patent application. The law in virtually every country outside the United States works well using this framework.

U.S. House Republicans recently introduced legislation that would prohibit entities on federal national security watchlists from receiving or enforcing U.S. patents. The Council for Innovation Promotion (C4IP) responded with a statement urging Congress to reconsider the bill. The legislation would prohibit the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from issuing patents to individuals or entities identified as Chinese military-affiliated organizations.