Insights

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 adopted in 2020. Since then, inflation and rising operating costs have widened the gap between user fees and the cost of delivering services. The current proposal is designed to restore overall cost recovery to roughly 60 percent, a level the Office describes as broadly consistent with historical practice. Just as important, the Office signaled that it plans to separately seek comment on tiered or subscription-style fee models in the future, suggesting that the long-term debate may extend well beyond the dollar amounts in the present rulemaking.

China’s National Intellectual Property Administration has released its 2026 legislative work plan, placing the revision of the Trademark Law, the revision of the Regulations on the Protection of Layout-Designs of Integrated Circuits, and amendments to the Measures for the Administration of Priority Patent Examination on the year’s formal agenda. For companies and practitioners, this is more than a list of drafting tasks. It is a policy map showing where the Chinese IP system is likely to tighten, clarify, and modernize next.

What stands out is not only the individual projects, but the combined direction they suggest. Brand governance, patent examination acceleration, semiconductor-related rights, and related implementation rules are being advanced within the same annual framework. That points to a broader regulatory objective: closing institutional gaps, improving coordination across filing, examination, protection, and commercialization, and building a more usable legal infrastructure for emerging sectors.

Effective January 1, 2026, the 13th edition of the Nice Classification (NCL 13-2026) introduced a set of changes that go well beyond editorial cleanup. Several commonly used goods were reclassified into new classes: spectacles, contact lenses and sunglasses moved to Class 10; electric toothbrushes moved to Class 21; heated clothing moved to Class 25; emergency and rescue vehicles moved to Class 12. Class 42 also added new terminology including “Artificial intelligence as a service (AIaaS).”

For businesses preparing new trademark filings, international extensions, renewals or portfolio reviews, these shifts matter because classification is not just a filing formality. It affects how goods and services are described, how clearance searches are framed, and how protection strategies are coordinated across jurisdictions. In practice, 2026 is becoming a reset point for trademark specification drafting rather than a routine annual update.

As of 1 March 2026, ARIPO’s major amendments to the Banjul Protocol framework have entered into force, reshaping how regional trademark filings will be budgeted, timed and managed. The most visible change is financial: the e-filing application fee has increased from USD 80 to USD 160, the paper filing fee from USD 100 to USD 200, the registration fee for each designated member state from USD 100 to USD 150, and the renewal fee from USD 100 to USD 200 per designated state.

But the reform is not only about higher charges. The new rules also introduce updated forms and a more structured alignment with ARIPO’s online filing environment, shorten the refusal period to six months, add a six-month exhibition priority claim, revise time-limit computation, impose a transmittal fee in opposition proceedings, and consolidate English as the official procedural language. For businesses using ARIPO as a multi-country trademark route in Africa, the reform signals a shift from convenience-driven filing to more disciplined, front-loaded decision-making.

On 10 March 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on copyright and generative AI that sends a clear policy signal to the Commission and the market: if a generative AI service operates in or targets the EU, it should not be able to evade EU copyright rules simply because model training took place outside the Union. The resolution argues for a more enforceable connection between transparency duties, rightsholder reservations and practical enforcement, so that non-compliant providers do not gain a structural advantage over compliant competitors.

What makes the text especially significant is that it does not treat AI training as an isolated copyright question. Instead, it links licensing clarity, rightsholder bargaining power, media compensation and platform regulation into a single policy debate. For businesses, that suggests the compliance perimeter is expanding from model training to downstream uses, retrieval systems, traffic capture and monetisation design. For creators, publishers and news organisations, it is a sign that the EU is trying to build a more workable infrastructure for both exclusion and licensing.

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 than treating copyright as a simple binary fight between unrestricted training and outright prohibition, it invites Congress to explore licensing frameworks or collective rights systems that could allow rights holders to negotiate compensation from AI providers. Together with its proposal for federal protection against unauthorized AI-generated digital replicas, the framework sketches a more layered U.S. approach to AI governance—one that may reshape how creators, platforms, and model developers position themselves in the next phase of the debate.