Insights

On July 1, 2026, the U.S. Copyright Office released new practical guidance on how the DMCA notice-and-takedown framework should operate when the disputed material is AI-generated, deepfaked, or synthetically performed. The point that stands out is not that automation has become irrelevant. It is that platforms cannot treat an automated assessment of “possible fair use” as a substitute for substantive review when a copyright complaint is already on the table.

The sharper compliance risk appears at the counter-notice stage. According to the guidance, if the uploader disputes the takedown and files a counter-notice, a platform that wants to preserve its DMCA safe harbor cannot simply fall back on similarity scores, automated filters, or generic labels about transformative use. It needs a real human-in-the-loop review. That procedural shift is likely to affect music platforms, UGC services, AI creation tools, and any service now handling synthetic media at scale.

On June 30, Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) released a new rule on the examination of trademark coexistence agreements and Letters of Consent. The practical shift is substantial: where the conflicting parties have signed a coexistence arrangement, examiners are now expected, as a rule, to accept that arrangement and allow registration, with tighter scrutiny reserved for high-risk fields such as medicines and public safety.

This changes a long-standing instinct in Brazilian trademark practice. Until now, coexistence agreements were often treated as supporting material rather than something that could decisively move a case. The new rule points in the opposite direction. INPI also closed off a familiar line of argument in bad-faith filing disputes: a local filer may no longer rely on the fact that the same brands coexist abroad as a defence for opportunistic conduct in Brazil.

On July 2, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a memorandum aimed squarely at expert testimony in PTAB proceedings. The immediate point is not that AI tools are forbidden. It is that expert declarations containing claim charts, technical comparisons, infringement-style mappings, or data extrapolations assisted by large language models and similar tools must now be accompanied by a sworn statement of independent verification.

The memorandum matters because it reframes AI use as an evidentiary reliability issue, not merely a drafting issue. If the extent of AI involvement is not candidly disclosed, or if the expert cannot show meaningful human review of the analysis that made its way into the declaration, the PTAB may treat those portions as hearsay and exclude them. For parties preparing IPR and other post-grant records, that changes how expert evidence must be built, documented, and defended.

The USPTO has confirmed that, starting July 18, 2026, new U.S. trademark applications filed under Sections 1 and 44 of the Trademark Act will receive eight-digit serial numbers beginning with “50.” On paper, it looks like an administrative reset because the current “99” series is nearing exhaustion. In practice, it is the kind of small back-end change that can expose very old assumptions inside law-firm and in-house trademark systems.

The agency also made clear what does not change. Priority will still be determined by filing date and time, not by the size of the serial number; examination timing is not supposed to shift; and Madrid extensions of protection to the United States will continue to begin with “79.” The real problem sits elsewhere: countless docketing rules, spreadsheet macros, reports, and data pulls quietly assume that newer U.S. applications always carry larger numbers. From July 18 onward, that assumption stops working.

After hosting the 19th IP5 Heads of Office Meeting on 12 June, the Japan Patent Office said on 16 June that the five offices had agreed on new directions for AI-focused co-operation and would establish a dedicated working group to carry the discussion forward. Read literally, that announcement is still framework-level. It does not yet amount to a single binding AI patent rulebook shared word for word across Japan, Europe, China, Korea and the United States.

What matters for applicants is something narrower and more practical. The JPO already has updated AI case examples, refreshed handbook materials, an expanded internal team supporting AI examinations and external AI Advisors. Put those pieces next to the IP5 announcement and the likely direction becomes easier to read: AI prosecution is moving away from broad functional drafting and toward closer questioning on technical route, disclosure density, technical effect and whether the claimed result can really be tied to reproducible implementation choices.

China’s revised Trademark Law was formally adopted on 26 June 2026 and will take effect on 1 January 2027. The first wave of official explanations released in early July makes one point hard to miss: this is not a narrow procedural update. It is a broader reset of how trademark filing, use, administration and enforcement are expected to fit together.

The headline issue is tougher action against bad-faith filings and stockpiling. That matters. But the more consequential shift is structural. The law is moving away from a system that could still tolerate “file first, sort it out later” behaviour and toward one that asks a more basic question from the start: why is this mark being filed, how will it be used, and does the rights strategy still make sense once market order and public impact are taken seriously?