Under the US Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) new guidance on discretionary denial of institution of inter partes and post-grant (IPR and PGR, respectively) proceedings, a pending International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation is no longer a basis for the Patent Trial and Appeals Board (PTAB) to exercise its discretion to deny institution. This is a material change from past PTAB practice, which had previously denied institution of such post-grant proceedings due to an ongoing parallel ITC proceeding. This article discusses three considerations for ITC litigants given the USPTO’s new guidance.
In this multi-country guide, learn the rules for the protection of trade secrets in a wide range of jurisdictions.
Learn about ownership issues regarding Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs).
On Aug. 5, 2022, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Thaler v. Vidal ruled that an artificial intelligence (AI) system cannot be listed as a named inventor on a patent application, affirming the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia rulings. The Federal Circuit concluded that the Patent Act requires an “inventor,” as defined in Section 100(f), to be a “natural person."
Check out this whitepaper developed by Foley & Lardner LLP to learn more about the top twelve trends in the digital assets space.
The decision is an example of the English Courts’ willingness to develop and apply existing case law to contemporaneous disputes, in this case in relation to crypto assets and persons unknown who might be out of the jurisdiction (a common feature of such cases) to ensure victims have a timely means of tracing and recovering stolen assets.