Insights

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced on August 18, 2026 that TTAB Center had added another group of filing options, including motions or cross-motions for summary judgment, discovery requests related to summary-judgment motions, motions to strike, requests for reconsideration of Board orders or decisions, and copies of notices of appeal from Board decisions. The more precise description is not that the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has completed a one-time overhaul, but that the migration from the long-standing ESTTA system to TTAB Center has moved into another stage. The USPTO continues to indicate that the transition is ongoing.

A second development sits on the examination side. The USPTO confirmed in July that Scout LLM, its enterprise large-language-model environment, had been expanded across Trademarks as of July 1, including trademark examining attorneys. Its disclosed capabilities include summarisation, data analysis, topic research, optional drafting assistance and web search. At the same time, TTABlog's 2026 tracking of Section 2(e)(1) mere-descriptiveness appeals shows an affirmance rate still above 90%. The timing overlaps, but the public record does not establish that Scout LLM caused the Board's affirmance rate to rise. The more defensible practical point is that evidence-finding at examination is becoming more efficient while reversals at the TTAB in descriptiveness cases have long been difficult.

The USPTO has materially changed how design patent applications for graphical user interfaces are expected to establish their connection to an article of manufacture. On March 13, 2026, the Office published supplemental examination guidance for computer-generated electronic images and icons, effective immediately for pending and future matters. By mid-August, as examiner training and practitioner implementation spread, the change was increasingly being treated in practice as part of routine examination. The timeline matters: March 13 is the formal effective date of the guidance, while August 18 is better understood as a practitioner-reported execution milestone rather than a new legal commencement date.

The practical shift is straightforward but consequential. An applicant no longer has to draw a conventional display panel, handset outline, or monitor border in solid or broken lines merely to anchor a GUI to a physical screen. If the title and claim properly identify the relevant article—such as a computer, computer system, or computer display device—a projected interface, holographic image, or interface used in virtual or augmented reality can satisfy the article-of-manufacture requirement under 35 U.S.C. §171 even when the visual design is spatially separated from the hardware that generates it. But “screenless” does not mean “article-free”: an isolated or transient digital image that is not legally tied to a computer or computer system can still fall outside design-patent eligibility.

This article updates our report of 17 August, “Brazil and Peru Open Collaborative PCT Review for Life Sciences Patents”.

Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) and Peru’s INDECOPI have moved patent cooperation into a more operational phase. On 11 August 2026, Brazil’s INPI announced the launch of a collaborative examination project covering an initial group of nine applications in pharmaceuticals, medicinal chemistry and biopharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and natural products. The selected cases must be linked through the PCT route, have corresponding family applications before both offices, and fall within defined national-phase filing windows. Once selected, they are advanced for technical examination, although each office continues to apply its own substantive law and examination practice.

Days later, Brazil’s INPI published its 2027–2036 strategic plan. Read together, the two developments point to more than a simple acceleration initiative: one is a live test of work-sharing on related patent families, while the other places productivity, examination quality, digital transformation, artificial intelligence and international cooperation within a ten-year institutional framework. One distinction matters. The decade-long strategy is directional; widely discussed figures such as a 3.5-year average patent decision cycle and roughly ten months for unopposed trademark decisions are better understood as near-term operational benchmarks associated with INPI’s current planning cycle, not as immutable promises fixed through 2036.

Kenya Copyright Board (KECOBO) and the AfCFTA Secretariat announced on 12 August 2026 that Nairobi will host the seventh Pan-African Intellectual Property Summit in November. The meeting is expected to focus on aligning national IP policies more closely with the framework of the AfCFTA Protocol on Intellectual Property Rights, with particular attention to making protection and commercialisation less fragmented across African markets.

The harder work will come after the summit. Cross-border licensing and enforcement for music and film, coordination of patent protection, and remedies involving traditional knowledge are all areas where continent-wide principles still have to be translated into national law, administrative practice and workable enforcement channels. For rights holders and companies active in Africa, the practical issue is not simply whether harmonisation is endorsed, but how quickly individual states adopt compatible procedures. If implementation advances, it could lower friction in cross-border exploitation and enforcement; until then, country-by-country checks on title, evidence and remedies will remain essential.

Epiroc completed its acquisition of South African mining aftermarket specialist Eventspec on August 4, 2026, following conditional approval by the South African Competition Tribunal announced on July 8. The Tribunal’s description of the transaction is notable because it separates control of the operating business from control of the associated intellectual property: an Epiroc vehicle will control the business, while Epiroc Holdings South Africa will control the relevant IP. Eventspec designs, manufactures and repairs mining equipment parts and also refurbishes and rebuilds mining machinery, making engineering know-how and reusable technical assets an important part of the commercial package rather than a peripheral legal issue.

The public record does not disclose a stand-alone valuation of the IP or a detailed patent portfolio, so the deal should not be overstated as a simple purchase of a “patent pool.” Still, the structure offers a useful signal for industrial companies. In heavy engineering, the assets that support aftermarket revenue and product extension can include protected designs, technical documentation, process knowledge and other transferable rights. Companies preparing for investment, financing or a sale may therefore benefit from cleaning up ownership records, employee and contractor assignments, licensing restrictions and technical-asset inventories before due diligence begins; weak documentation in those areas can become a valuation and execution issue very quickly.

This article updates our report of 2 August, “Saudi Arabia Joins the Madrid System from 8 October”.

WIPO Information Notice No. 35/2026 confirms that Saudi Arabia’s accession to the Madrid Protocol will take effect on October 8, 2026, and sets out several procedural points for designations of the Kingdom. Most importantly for filing practice, Saudi Arabia has declared an 18-month time limit for notifying provisional refusals rather than the standard one-year period; refusals based on opposition may, in specified circumstances, be notified after that period. Saudi Arabia will also apply individual fees to designations, subsequent designations and renewals, although the amounts were not published in this notice and are to be announced separately by WIPO.

Applicants planning to use the Madrid System for Saudi protection should therefore avoid treating the 12-month mark as the point at which examination risk has largely cleared. Another practical constraint is equally important: because Saudi law does not provide for the relevant mechanism, SAIP will not transmit requests to divide an international registration in respect of Saudi Arabia, nor requests to merge international registrations resulting from such a division. Madrid membership will make the filing route more convenient, but it will not remove local procedural differences; fee planning, prosecution timelines and goods-and-services strategy still need a Saudi-specific check.