News & Analysis as of September 10, 2025

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An assignment is the transfer of a right or benefit from one party to another party. Assignments can occur in contract or real estate contexts. A contract assignment refers to a situation where one party to a contract transfers his/her rights or benefits under the contract to a third party. In a real estate assignment, an interest holder transfers his/her interest in a particular parcel to another party. less -

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USPTO Announces New Assignment Search Portal

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP on 8/29/2025

On August 27, 2025, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office quietly announced that it would be deprecating its current Patent Assignment Search and Assignments on the Web assignment search portals and replacing them with a new...more

Best Practices for Diligencing Chain-of-Title for Post-AIA Patent Applications with Assignee-Applicants

Ropes & Gray LLP on 8/15/2025

Patent diligence in the context of M&A and other types of commercial transactions typically involves confirmation of a patent’s chain-of-title ownership, from initial inventors through to the current assignee-owner. The...more

New WDTX Order Shakes Up Initial Judge Assignments

McDermott Will & Schulte on 7/28/2022

A recent order from Chief Judge Garcia of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas (WDTX) changes how judges are initially assigned to cases filed in its Waco Division. As of July 25, 2022, patent cases filed...more

IP Assignment Considerations for Emerging Companies

Rothwell, Figg, Ernst & Manbeck, P.C. on 3/29/2021

Founders of an emerging company must decide early on in its growth cycle whether to require employees to assign their inventions (including rights to patent and patent applications –collectively “patent rights”) to the...more

The Complexities of the USPTO Proposed Attributable Ownership Rules

Foley & Lardner LLP on 4/11/2014

The USPTO proposed attributable ownership rules would require the public disclosure of the “attributable owner” of patent applications and patents. As discussed in this article, the proposed definition of “attributable owner”...more

Yet Another "Patent-Troll" Bill – Senator Leahy Introduces Patent Transparency and Improvements Act

McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP on 11/21/2013

There has been a flurry activity recently in both the House and Senate aimed at addressing the perceived patent-troll problem. We have recently reported on the introduction of both the "Innovation Act," from Rep. Bob...more

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