No Shutdown Planned At The USPTO

The Board dismissed this petition for cancellation of Roman Atwood's registration for the mark SMILE MORE for various goods (stickers, backpacks, shirts) and for retail store service featuring clothing, denying petitioner's claim that the term fails to function as a mark.

Universal Music Group's lawsuit against DistroKid raises a critical question about AI disclosure in consumer markets: when does the use of artificial intelligence become material information that must be disclosed to consumers? The case centers on allegations that DistroKid distributed mass-generated AI music while creating the impression it was created by legitimate human artists, potentially violating existing consumer protection laws even without specific AI disclosure requirements.

On Oct. 7, 2026, at 18:00 UTC, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will publish every new generic top-level domain (gTLD) application proceeding in the 2026 new gTLD Round, including who applied...

The U.S. Copyright Office recently released a report on the human authorship requirement for materials to qualify for copyright protection.

The U.S. government has filed a Statement of Interest of the United States of America under 28 U.S.C. § 517 in the Southern District of New York multidistrict litigation over OpenAI’s use of copyrighted works to train large language models. The filing appears to be the federal government’s first direct intervention in the wave of artificial intelligence (AI) training copyright cases, and it advises the court to treat model training (separate from use of AI to generate outputs) on copyrighted text standing alone as a highly transformative fair use under current law.

There was a significant ruling in the Doe v. Github case involving training of AI code generator models on open source. The United States Court of Appeals for The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court ruling dismissing part of an action brought under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by programmers against GitHub, Inc., and other defendants. The issues centered on whether defendants removed copyright management information (CMI) from content used to train the AI code generator models.

A business decides to file a trademark. Someone on the team searches for a familiar online legal-services brand, clicks the first result, and lands on a site with a similar-sounding name, a polished design, five-star reviews, and a low flat fee. The application gets filed. Months later the business learns the “service” was not who they thought it was, the filing was signed by someone with no authority to sign it, and the USPTO has suspended the application along with hundreds or thousands of others from the same shop.

Is this AI-generated, or is it real? As generative AI tools have become increasingly capable of creating realistic images, videos, and audio, they have also made it easier to impersonate real people without their consent. In response, states are increasingly adopting laws that impose civil and criminal liability for certain AI-generated content that replicates an individual’s identity, likeness, voice, or other personal attributes.

In recent video game news, gaming giant Nintendo filed and settled a lawsuit against the developers of the popular Nintendo Switch emulator, Yuzu.

The USPTO has released its latest economic impact report on IP-intensive industries, announced a new community engagement office in North Carolina, and issued several administrative updates including relief for Japanese applicants affected by a severe earthquake. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has also designated new precedential and informative decisions addressing obviousness-type double patenting and Markush groupings.

Scott L. Vernick was quoted in The Legal Intelligencer article, "Did UPMC Data Breach Ruling Lock Plaintiffs Out of State Court?" on January 23, 2017.

Fox Rothschild was among three first-time entrants into the Am Law 100 this year, jumping up 10 spots from a year ago.

Christopher J. Pippett was featured in the Credit Union Times article, "Feds Uncover New Details in CFO Embezzlement."

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) just published its Health Products Compliance Guidance ("Guidance"), which it issued to replace an advertising guide from 1998 focused on dietary supplements.

Mossack Fonseca. Before April 2016, most of us had never even heard of a Panamanian law firm by that name.

Darrell D. Miller is featured in The Wrap's article, "Jamie Chung, ‘Deadpool' Actor Karan Soni Join Jennifer Aniston's ‘Office Christmas Party' (Exclusive)."

Joshua Horn's blog post, "Why The SEC Does Not Want The Free Lunch," originally posted the firm's Securities Compliance Sentinel, was mentioned as one of the top postings for October 19, 2015.

The annual State of the Union address fulfills an obligation of the Presidency set forth in Article II, Section 3 of the United States Constitution...

Anyone want to lay bets in favor of the individual athlete v. the corporate NCAA? That’s what we thought.

Brian McGinnis was featured in the Courier-Post article, "Norcross Calls for Congress to Act on Gun Safety."