Thinking Outside The Box

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

On December 5th, the USPTO issued new guidance on subject matter eligibility declarations and also updated subject matter eligibility guidance in the MPEP.

The European Patent Office has released its April 2026 Guidelines for Examination, introducing significant changes to procedural and substantive patent law. Key updates include modifications to the PACE acceleration program, new claim interpretation standards following the G1/24 decision, relaxed novelty requirements for products placed on the market under G1/23, and refined guidance on further medical use claims under Article 54(5) EPC.

The Federal Circuit has ruled that patents cannot be saved when an undisputed joint inventor is omitted and cannot be added due to inability to provide required notice. This case of first impression establishes that omitted coinventors are "parties concerned" under 35 U.S.C. § 256(b), entitled to notice regardless of economic interest, and that failure to satisfy this statutory requirement results in patent invalidity even when all parties agree on inventorship.

On September 13, the International Trade Commission announced that Monica V. Bhattacharyya has been named a USITC Administrative Law Judge.

On May 31, 2022, the ITC issued a Notice of Investigation in Certain Pneumatic Compression Devices and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-1316).

While this blog normally writes about the issues facing the patentability of AI inventions, we want to write about a topic that is high on our radar: the USPTO’s plans for integrating AI into the examination process. While certain programs, such as the USPTO’s Artificial Intelligence Search Automated Pilot Program (ASAP!) program were previously tested, a greater question looms on the availability of examiners to use large language models (LLMs) as a tool for examination.

The meeting addressed the increasing risk of copyright violations, as AI technology allows the creation of text or images closely resembling original works.

The USPTO's new Director Review Process is reshaping patent proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with recent decisions showing how patent owners can successfully challenge unpatentability findings for dependent claims.

Christopher Ricciuti and Yuki Onoe co-authored the article ［米国］Thryv最高裁判決およびIPRと上訴に関する判例の展開 featured in the July edition of Intellectual Property Magazine (知財管理).

On March 13, 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued supplemental guidance that provides design patent applicants with greater flexibility when claiming...