Patent Lodge

On November 26, 2025, the USPTO introduced revised guidance for determining inventorship when involving AI-assisted inventions. The guidance continues with longstanding inventorship principles, in that only natural persons can be named as inventors on patent applications.

On December 29, 2022, the Unleashing American Innovators Act was signed into law. Under the UAIA, the USPTO is required to assess a penalty of not less than three times the amount that an entity failed to pay to the USPTO when the entity is found to have falsely made an assertion or certification of small or micro entity status unless a good faith error can be shown. 

Back in December of 2024, we wrote an article that was critical of a requirement the USPTO was planning to implement. Fortunately, the USPTO withdrew the proposal.

This blog post contrasts the Federal Circuit’s 2004 Chef America decision, which refused to correct arguably erroneous claim language based on prosecution history, with the more recent Canatex decision recognizing courts’ authority to correct obvious claim errors through claim construction.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office proposed a rule that would affect terminal disclaimers filed to obviate Non-Statutory Double Patenting rejections.

On December 14, 2024, the window will seemingly shut forever on the After Final Consideration Pilot Program 2.0.

This summer, the USPTO issued updated guidance on the ever-evolving subject-matter eligibility standard for the patentability of AI inventions. This guidance aims to provide clarity regarding the analysis of whether an invention is directed to an abstract idea and, even if the invention is an abstract idea, whether the invention is integrated into a practical application.

As excitement concerning AI technology rages on, we have seen more reporting with respect to certain companies.

It should not come as much of a surprise that major shakeups are ahead for the U.S. Federal Government, with President-Elect Donald Trump voted back into office and starting his second term in January 2025. But will this involve the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office?

Last Spring, we reported on a case before the U.S. Court Of Appeals for the Federal Circuit relating to U.S. design patents, LKQ Corp. v. G. M. Global Technologies. As we noted then, the Federal Circuit, in agreeing to take up the case, would be deciding whether change was needed for the long-standing, established test for invalidation of U.S. design patents. That case has now been decided.