Final FY2026 numbers: 315,825 utility grants, continuing applications at 26% of grants, US-origin share at 39%, published applications down 6%, and cross-border inventor teams on a record 10.7% of patents.

Third Circuit affirms no fair use in Thomson Reuters v. ROSS: intermediate copying requires necessity, and generative AI is left for another case.

Satius v. Samsung: a claim reciting an impossible alternative is definite, but the Federal Circuit holds it invalid for lack of enablement under Amgen.

Federal Circuit denies en banc review in Teva v. Lilly over Judge Dyk's dissent, leaving method claims to an antibody genus intact after Amgen.

USPTO Director John Squires issued another memorandum on Subject Matter Eligibility Declarations (SMEDs) today

Crocs asks the Supreme Court whether one ITC determination can start two appeal clocks after the Federal Circuit dismissed its appeal as late.

Magritte meets claim construction: the Federal Circuit rejects Zentian's 'this is not a pipe' argument that prior codewords aren't the claimed feature vectors.

Texas, UCSF, Siemens, and a London startup are staking patent claims on brain-to-text decoding. Older patents already cover pieces of the path.

In 1812, Attorney General Pinkney said a patent could not be refused on moral grounds, five years before Story's Lowell v. Lewis.

RCE filings are rising again, driven largely by more USPTO final rejections, with the end of AFCP 2.0 also playing a role despite higher fees.

Guest post by Paul R. Gugliuzza: the Federal Circuit's jurisdictional holding in Insulet v. EOFlow ignores Mottley's well-pleaded complaint rule.

Federal Circuit dismisses pro se patent appeal as six months late, but with no separate Rule 58 judgment the notice was only 24 days late.

USPTO utility grants held near 320k in FY2026, but continuing applications fell to 26% of grants and the US-origin share dropped to about 39%.

Supreme Court patent docket swells with 13 petitions, two more pending, and major fights over IPR review, eligibility, damages, and claim scope.

Sept 16, 2021 is the 10 year anniversary of enactment of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act of 2011.  I've got …

Fortress Iron seeks Supreme Court review after losing two patents over a coinventor who could not be found. An 1868 case went the other way.

In re Lemay (Fed. Cir. 2016) In a divided opinion, the Federal Circuit has sided with Apple Inc. and reversed …

Carnegie v. Fenix Diamonds: Federal Circuit affirms $3.2M fee award on objective baselessness, a showing Octane left sufficient but not required.

Federal Circuit vacates PTAB obviousness rejection in In re Incept, finding the Board’s broad reading of “flow barrier” unreasonable under BRI.

Federal Circuit extends Sanho to 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(1)(B): NCS Multistage's private AirLock sale was no public disclosure, so a rival's sale is prior art.

by Dennis Crouch In re Midwest Athletics and Sports Alliance LLC (Fed. Cir. 2021) MASA sued Xerox for infringing 20 …

Apple asks the Supreme Court whether R&D counts as labor or capital under the ITC's domestic industry test, plus the ITC's tariff-era origins.

A Sept. 10 USPTO notice lets PTAB judges advise examiners at pre-appeal and appeal conferences. What changed, the recusal gap, and PTA effects.

Federal Circuit reverses in TexasLDPC v. Broadcom: Rule 19 is not a discovery tool, and Texas A&M is not a required party to its licensee's suit.

Rare Breed's trigger appeal at the Federal Circuit: why the O2 Micro misstep below may not matter, and how a DOJ deal fueled a 95-case patent MDL.

Versata v. Ford: trade secret law reaches a taker's gains, unlike patent law. Can a license cap that recovery at a royalty? Courts are split.

Dennis Crouch previews the January 6-9, 2027 IP CLE Conference at Grand Hyatt Vail, including the patent, PTAB, and AI sessions.

A randomized trial gave 133 patent lawyers an AI drafting assistant for 90 days. Drafts improved, but only senior lawyers kept the gain without it.

preview of four patent cases with oral arguments before the federal circuit on Sept 8, 2026.

The Federal Circuit affirms a Section 285 fee award against Viavi: no rule requires reverse engineering, but the accused phones were easy to buy.

Terminal disclaimers hit a 2008 low. The cause was not Cellect or Allergan but a USPTO docketing change in which applications examiners took up.

Professor John Duffy has been offered the USPTO General Counsel post, reuniting him with Director Squires, his co-counsel from the Bilski litigation.

Ramey seeks rehearing after the Federal Circuit held his notice of appeal never made him an appellant. His Rule 3(c)(7) argument arrives late.

House IP subcommittee hearing on USPTO fee setting renewal: Wasserman's grant-incentive research, the 2024 fee study that never tested it, and PTAB and PPAC strings.

A patent sale scam is targeting IP attorneys: real patent, real executive, real broker, lookalike domains, and $1.65M routed through your IOLTA.

Amazon seeks rehearing in Ceiva v. Amazon over a physically separable interface the PTO had already cancelled a claim containing.

Eleven USPTO discipline orders issued June and July 2026. Most rest on state discipline under 37 CFR 11.804(h), and most respondents never replied.

Improper venue did not stop Judge Jordan from also holding the claims ineligible. AML IP v. Bath & Body Works and the one-way discretion it confirms.

Federal Circuit reissues Constellation Designs v. LG, deleting the damages footnote language LG attacked on rehearing. Forfeiture now stands alone.

The Federal Circuit transfers T-Mobile v. KAIFI to the Fifth Circuit, holding that a settlement dispute over "survives the EPR" is not a patent case.

The Senate CR would extend USPTO fee setting authority only to December 11, putting renewal in play alongside PTAB discretionary denial reform.

by Dennis Crouch The Department of Commerce Inspector General has released an important investigative report concluding that a substantial number of …

Federal Circuit vacates PTAB obviousness ruling in Zilkr v. Cisco, narrowing 'provision' and 'activate' based on uniform specification usage.

SCOTUS denied 36 patent petitions this year. Sorting them by question presented shows the bar attacking process, not doctrine.

China passed Japan in US patent grants in 2024, but the margin is almost entirely design patents. Japan still leads in utility patents.

One in five first final rejections in 2024 named allowable claims. Those applications have patented at 92%; the rest at 55%, with a third abandoned.