» Patents

A recent decision by the Federal Circuit should make it easier for applicants to be granted design patents. The US Patent Office (USPTO) explains design patents in the Design Patent Application Guide, A design consists of the visual ornamental charac… Read More

A federal jury has awarded Optis Wireless Technology LLC and several related companies $300 million in damages after a second patent trial against Apple. A jury previously found that Apple infringed five Optis wireless “standard essential patents�… Read More

The America Invents Act (AIA) was signed into law by President Barack Obama ten years ago, on September 16, 2011. The AIA was the most significant change to US patent law since the Patent Act of 1952. Among other things, the AIA switched the US from… Read More

Last year, the USPTO confirmed that artificial intelligence (AI) cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application. Now, an Australian court has ruled that AI systems can be legally recognized as inventors in patent applications. The decision i… Read More

As we recently wrote about in this blog, even something as seemingly trivial as the little word “a” can be important when it comes to interpreting a patent. Punctuation is also more important than you might think when it comes to legal documents… Read More

After many years of delays, a Unitary EU Patent and EU Patent Court may finally come into existence in 2022. According to the European Patent Office (EPO), the new system will offer users of the patent system a “cost-effective option for patent pro… Read More

What does the little word “a” mean in a patent application? It’s surprisingly unclear. In the recent case of Niz-Chavez v. Garland, US Supreme Court decided that “a” meant “one.” That might seem obvious, but the government in that case… Read More

The US Supreme Court has recently issued a decision on the doctrine of assignor estoppel – a rule that prevents patent owners that assign their patents from then challenging the validity of those patents. As the Court noted, In the late 1990s, Csab… Read More