On March 20, 2026, the White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence legislative recommendations, and the section on intellectual property immediately stood out. The document states that the Administration believes training AI models on copyrighted material does not violate U.S. copyright law, while also acknowledging contrary arguments and urging Congress not to interfere with the courts’ resolution of whether such training qualifies as fair use.
The framework is notable not only for its pro-innovation tone, but also for the second track it opens. Rather...
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reminded applicants that, from July 20, 2026, any patent matter involving at least one applicant or patent owner domiciled outside the United States and its territories will generally need to be handled by a registered U.S. patent practitioner in good standing. The requirement covers utility, plant and design patent matters and applies to filings received on or after that date, including amendments, responses, information disclosure statements, petitions and most other correspondence. Pending applications filed before July 20 are not exempt from the...
According to a USPTO announcement and Ghanaian reporting published on 14 July, the Ghana Industrial Property Office (GHIPO), under the Office of the Registrar of Companies, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office signed a statement of intent in Geneva on 9 July 2026 concerning an Accelerated Patent Grant (APG) arrangement. Ghana is the first African country to move forward with this type of cooperation with the USPTO. Under the proposed mechanism, an applicant holding a granted US patent and a corresponding Ghanaian application may request accelerated grant in Ghana, while GHIPO...
On July 22, 2026, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a proposed rule that would amend 37 CFR 1.510 and require third-party ex parte reexamination requesters to identify themselves and every other real party in interest. The statement could, on request, be kept out of the public patent and reexamination files and retained confidentially by the USPTO. Comments are due by August 21, 2026. The proposal would not necessarily make every identity public, but it would end the model in which even the Office may not know who is actually behind a request.The USPTO links the change to its...
On 30 July 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued an official notice designating the severe earthquake that struck Japan on 28 July as an “extraordinary situation” under 37 CFR 1.183, 2.146(a)(5) and 2.148. Depending on the proceeding, affected patent and trademark applicants, patent owners, reexamination parties and trademark registrants may request measures such as restarting an unexpired response period, waiving certain petition fees or maintenance-fee surcharges, or obtaining relief from delays caused by the disaster. For trademark matters, the notice also...
On 6 August 2026, the USPTO Appeals Review Panel (ARP) issued its rehearing decision in Ex parte Baurin, reinstating an obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP) rejection. The panel treated the anti-harassment rationale as independently relevant: even where there is no apparent unjustified extension of patent term, OTDP may still address the risk that commonly owned patent rights later become divided and asserted separately.Continue reading with a member accountRegister free to unlock full analysis and practical recommendations.Log InRegister
The U.S. Copyright Office implemented its final GRNW rule on August 13, 2026, revising the definition of a qualifying “news website” for group registration of updates. The prior rule described eligible sites in terms broad enough to favor general-interest news outlets, including language suggesting coverage of all subjects rather than a limited field. The revised definition focuses instead on whether a website primarily provides written information about current events. In its final rule, the Office made clear that specialized publishers may qualify when they regularly report a range of...
A USPTO decision disclosed on 3 May tightens the link between inter partes review and ex parte reexamination. The key point is the timing of estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1): a request for reexamination is not treated merely as a filing made on a particular day, but as a pending request that continues until the Office orders reexamination under 35 U.S.C. § 304.That reading narrows a familiar strategy: challenge the patent first through IPR, then use ex parte reexamination as a second route if the IPR record begins to look unfavourable. If the IPR final written decision has already...
Congress has approved H.R. 6500, extending the USPTO's America Invents Act fee-setting authority through 11 December 2026. Without congressional action, that authority would have expired after 15 September. The short extension removes the immediate risk of a statutory gap and gives lawmakers several more months to decide whether the Office should retain longer-term flexibility to set patent and trademark fees.The more consequential issue is what Congress may demand in return. At a 2 September House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, lawmakers and witnesses tied the renewal debate to the Patent...
US enforcement around “Made in America” and “Made in USA” claims is becoming harder to treat as a routine advertising issue. Following the White House’s March executive order, the FTC has sharpened its attention on misleading origin claims, while the USPTO context also points to closer scrutiny where such language appears in marks, product descriptions and brand messaging. The practical risk is simple: a patriotic phrase can become a compliance problem if the manufacturing facts do not support it.Companies using US-origin claims should review them before they reach trademark filings,...
The U.S. Copyright Office has issued an interim assessment on digital platform copyright governance and AI infringement liability, placing social media services, content-sharing platforms and built-in generative AI tools within the same policy conversation. The report’s immediate focus is not whether AI-generated content is useful, but whether automated AI systems used for DMCA notice-and-takedown can deal fairly with mistaken removals, under-removal and counter-notice procedures.The more difficult issue is the platform’s changing role. The traditional safe-harbour model rests on a familiar...
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s final rule published in the Federal Register on March 20, 2026 will take effect on July 20, 2026 and will require foreign applicants, inventors, and patent owners whose domicile is outside the United States or its territories to be represented in patent matters by a USPTO-registered patent practitioner. In the agency’s own framing, the change is meant to improve filing quality, curb fraud and other false submissions, and align U.S. practice more closely with the approach already taken by many foreign intellectual property offices.
The practical...
The USPTO’s supplemental guidance on design patent examination, effective March 13, 2026, brings an important clarification for applicants seeking protection for computer-generated interfaces and icons. The Office now makes clear that applicants are not required to depict the physical device in the drawings where the title and claim already identify the design as an interface or icon “for” a particular device, system, or display. It also expressly confirms that projection-based and hologram interfaces may qualify as design patent subject matter when they are tied to an article of...
On March 19, 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office announced in NewsNet that it would publish a proposed rule in the Federal Register to seek public comment on adjustments to its fee schedule. The proposed rule was published on March 20, 2026, and written comments are due by May 4, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The notice launches a new round of public debate over the pricing of copyright registration, recordation, and related administrative services.This is not simply a routine pricing update. The Office explained that it reviews and updates fees every few years, with the last adjustment...
The IP5 offices — CNIPA, the EPO, the JPO, MOIP (formerly KIPO) and the USPTO — have jointly decided to extend the IP5 Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot for another three years, from January 6, 2026 to January 5, 2029. The offices also made clear that the requirements and procedures for filing PPH requests under the pilot will remain unchanged. In practical terms, applicants will still be able to rely on an existing and familiar work-sharing route to accelerate related patent applications across major jurisdictions at a time when examination efficiency, budget discipline and filing...
On December 12, 2025, the USPTO updated the PTAB Trial Practice Guide to provide that, for AIA trial cases instituted under the process implemented on October 17, 2025, the Board will hold a pre-hearing conference with the parties no later than fifteen days before the oral hearing. For parties in inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR), this means that disputes often treated as matters for final-stage oral emphasis—claim construction, the rationale for combining prior art, and objective indicia of nonobviousness—are now formally pulled forward into an earlier and more...
By late March 2026, two USPTO workflow changes around Patent Center had moved from announcement to live operating reality. Effective March 9, the Automated Interview Request (AIR) form was relocated into Patent Center and is now submitted from the Existing Submissions menu. On the same effective date, courtesy ceremonial paper copies of eGrants stopped being automatic and became opt-in when the issue fee is paid. For law firms, portfolio managers and applicants that rely on stable internal routing, these are not cosmetic changes. They alter where routine procedural action actually...
In an Official Gazette notice dated April 1, 2026, the USPTO introduced a new procedure for ex parte reexamination requests: before the Office determines under 35 U.S.C. 303(a) whether the request raises a substantial new question of patentability (SNQ), the patent owner may file a pre-order paper without a separate petition and without paying a fee. The submission is intended to help the Office assess why the argued teaching(s) in the request should not be considered sufficient to raise an SNQ at the threshold stage. The paper is generally limited to 30 pages, must be filed within 30 days...
The UK conversation around bad-faith stockpiling and “zombie” marks is not just a passing enforcement headline. The verifiable public materials point to a broader tightening. After SkyKick, UKIPO told examiners to look actively at specifications that are manifestly and self-evidently broad, and from 1 April 2026 the forms and fees for revocation and invalidation have also been updated. The practical message is that the UK system is becoming less tolerant of filings built to occupy space first and justify business use later.Across the Atlantic, the PTAB story should also be framed...
The USPTO’s recent memorandum on Rule 132 Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations puts a sharper lens on a familiar but often underdeveloped argument in AI, software and biotechnology patent prosecution: whether the claimed invention improves technology rather than merely using a computer to reach a desired result. The agency is not creating a separate patentability regime for AI. It is asking applicants to connect eligibility arguments to technical facts already disclosed in the application.For applicants, the practical message is direct. Describing an AI model that classifies, predicts,...
