IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law

Tillis Signals Willingness to Tweak PERA Amid Gene Patenting Concerns

Eileen McDermott — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:27:10 +0000

The full U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday, titled “From Genes to Machines: the Patent Eligibility Debate,” during which witnesses testified about the pros and cons of reforming U.S. patent eligibility law, with human genome patentability featuring as a key sticking point. While the hearing became heated at times—mostly over the peripheral topic of drug pricing—witnesses and Committee members ultimately seemed willing to work together on language that might move the bill forward.

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Why Patented Inventions Fail: The Hard Truth About Patents, Products and Commercialization | IPWatchdog Unleashed

Gene Quinn — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 18:15:07 +0000

The mythology surrounding the act of invention tends to concentrate on the breakthrough moment. There is a flash of insight, a sketch is made on a cocktail napkin, the prototype is assembled in a garage to prove the brilliance of the concept. Unfortunately, commercial markets are considerably less romantic. They do not reward ideas merely because they are clever, patentable or even technically superior. They reward products that work, solve a problem customers recognize, can be manufactured at an economically sustainable price and generate an acceptable return for whoever assumes the risk of bringing them to market.

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CAFC Vacates PTAB Ruling for Patent Owner in Google IPR

Rose Esfandiari — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 16:15:51 +0000

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision Monday in Google LLC v. Parus Holdings, Inc., vacating a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) final written decision that upheld two claims of a voice browsing patent owned by Parus Holdings, Inc. The court found that the Board made multiple errors under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in rejecting Google’s obviousness challenge and remanded the case for further proceedings.

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Magistrate Judge Allows Two Narrow Fraud Theories to Proceed Against APPLE Trademark Registration

Rachel Mount — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:32:32 +0000

Magistrate Judge Virginia K. DeMarchi in the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, last week granted in part and denied in part a professional trumpet player’s motion for leave to amend his complaint that challenges Apple’s APPLE trademark for entertainment services. Judge DeMarchi concluded that the standard had only been met in limited respects and ruled that Bertini may pursue two narrow fraud claims, while his remaining theories were rejected.

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On Eve of Eligibility Hearing, Study Shows Significantly Higher Rates of Section 101 Invalidations for AI Patents

Steve Brachmann — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 18:28:19 +0000

As the full Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to hold a major hearing on the state of U.S. patent eligibility law tomorrow, Amy Semet, Associate Professor of Law at the University at Buffalo School of Law, through her affiliation with the IP Policy Institute, has published a research paper providing the first empirical data on subject matter eligibility issues for artificial intelligence (AI) patents asserted in U.S. district court litigation. The research paper finds that not only are AI inventions invalidated at a higher rate than non-AI inventions, but also, unexpectedly, that obviousness invalidations for AI patents are low due to an incredibly high rate of subject matter eligibility invalidations in the sector.

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Federal Circuit Dismisses Patent Owner’s Patent Appeal for Lack of Appellate Jurisdiction

Rose Esfandiari — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 16:15:28 +0000

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a per curiam decision today in Tramec Sloan LLC v. Surti, dismissing an appeal brought by patent owner Tarun N. Surti after finding it lacked jurisdiction to review the district court’s order. Chief Judge Moore and Circuit Judges Lourie and Hughes decided the case per curiam, and no concurring or dissenting opinion accompanied the ruling.

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The Supreme Court Broke Patent Eligibility: Congress Can Fix It

Kristen Osenga — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 14:15:20 +0000

When the Senate Judiciary Committee examines the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) this week, lawmakers won't simply be debating patent law. They'll be deciding whether America remains the best place in the world to invent tomorrow's technologies. That question has taken on new urgency following a series of Supreme Court decisions. In the wake of those rulings, inventors, investors, and even judges have struggled to determine whether many groundbreaking discoveries qualify for patent protection.

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CAFC Affirms PTAB Obviousness Finding in Sony IPR Remand

Rose Esfandiari — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 13:20:01 +0000

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision Friday in Intellectual Pixels Limited v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC, affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision that held claims 1 through 12 of U.S. Patent No. 10,681,109 unpatentable as obvious. The ruling followed a second final written decision the Board issued after the case was remanded from an earlier Federal Circuit appeal.

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Other Barks & Bites for Friday, July 10: EU Trademark Filings Reach Record Total During First Half of 2026; Laura Peter Heads to WIPO; CAFC Says New PTAB Findings Did Not Violate Remand Mandate

Steve Brachmann — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 18:15:24 +0000

his week on Other Barks & Bites: the Sixth Circuit issued a ruling in favor of office furniture company MillerKnoll in a trademark case over the intellectual property rights to the Bubble Lamp; U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle issued a Section 101 ruling knocking out offline commerce transaction patent claims owned by Wolverine Barcode; the Federal Circuit found that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board did not violate the CAFC’s mandate on remand after the Board issued new findings on claim limitations disclosed by prior art; the European Union Intellectual Property Office announced that the agency received a record number of applications for EU trademarks during the first half of 2026; and more.

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CAFC Affirms Lack of Enablement Ruling Due to Gaps in Specification Requiring Undue Experimentation

Eileen McDermott — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:35:00 +0000

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), in a precedential decision, on Thursday affirmed a district court ruling that found certain claims of Wyeth LLC’s two patents for methods of cancer treatment invalid for lack of enablement. Wyeth sued AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in September 2021, alleging that AstraZeneca induced infringement of its U.S. Patents 10,603,314 and 10,596,162 “based on marketing, distribution, and sales of its irreversible EGFR inhibitor Tagrisso (osimertinib).”

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Judge Michel, Other Amici File Briefs Opposing Sandoz’s Fourth Circuit Appeal in Enbrel Antitrust Case

Steve Brachmann — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:15:05 +0000

This week, several amicus briefs were filed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit supporting defendant-appellees Amgen in an antitrust suit brought by rival pharmaceutical firm Sandoz, which is appealing the dismissal of its complaint by the Eastern District of Virginia. Amici, including former Federal Circuit Chief Judge Paul Michel, free market institute Washington Legal Foundation, and trade organizations representing the pharmaceutical industry, all strongly urge the Fourth Circuit to dismiss Sandoz’s attempt to circumvent adverse patent rulings with an overly broad antitrust theory that would disrupt the entire U.S. patent system.

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Federal Circuit Affirms PTAB Rejection of Magnolia Medical Blood Collection Patent Claim as Anticipated

Rose Esfandiari — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:15:23 +0000

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a decision today in In re Magnolia Medical Technologies, Inc., affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision from an ex parte reexamination that found claim 1 of U.S. Patent 10,039,483 anticipated and therefore unpatentable.

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The Future of Genus Patenting Strategies for Antibodies Post-Amgen

Zachary Silbersher — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 18:15:12 +0000

Broad functional genus claiming was previously a standard strategy for innovators seeking IP protection for antibodies. Prior guidance from the USPTO, including the “newly characterized antigen” test, encouraged broad claiming of antibodies based upon their function alone. For decades, that effectively allowed innovators to claim much more than they in fact discovered in practice. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Amgen decision, courts have adopted the reasoning articulated in Amgen to strike down functional genus antibody claims for lacking either enablement or written description.

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Who Owns the Worldview Inside an AI Model?

James Edwards — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 16:15:32 +0000

A faith-technology company has done something the IP world should notice. Gloo — a Boulder, Colorado, firm that serves churches, ministries, and Christian universities, and now trades on the Nasdaq — built a benchmark it calls Flourishing AI Christian, or FAI-C. The finding is blunt: Today’s leading large language models, tested on questions of meaning, character, and faith, come up short. On a 100-point flourishing scale, the frontier models averaged 61. On the faith dimension, they scored worst of all.

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Beyond the Logo: 7-Eleven v. Nike and the New Frontier of Brand Identity

Grace Lamendola — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:15:21 +0000

Trademark law has traditionally protected the most recognizable aspects of a brand: names, logos, and slogans. Increasingly, however, companies are asking courts to protect something far less tangible, the overall identity consumers associate with a brand. Colors, product aesthetics, marketing campaigns, and even the timing of a product launch have become valuable commercial assets in their own right. The recently filed lawsuit between 7-Eleven and Nike illustrates how modern trademark disputes are moving beyond conventional source identifiers and into the realm of brand identity itself.

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