Understanding Patent Applications and Methods for Best Approaches in Europe and the U.S.
Beginning in October 2025, the European Patent Office (EPO) will accept patent drawings in color or grayscale when filed electronically. By allowing more detailed and visually accurate representations, this change enhances...more
As artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increasingly generate content, designs, code, inventions, and even music, businesses face a pressing legal question: who owns the output when a machine creates it? The legal...more
Key Takeaways: - The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) of the European Patent Office (EPO) issued its opinion in G1/24 on June 18, 2025 resolving divergent case law on how patent claims should be interpreted at the EPO. - The...more
As expected, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is raising its fees this year, effective January 19, 2025. However, the USPTO is doing something a little unusual this time—they’re raising the cost of filing...more
As European medtech companies look to expand their presence in the U.S. market, understanding the intricacies of U.S. patent law becomes increasingly important. The U.S. market, being the largest for medical technologies,...more
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is revolutionizing the way patents are enforced in Europe, and McDermott’s intellectual property (IP) team is here to help you navigate this dynamic landscape. Our Legal Lens on the Unified...more
Recently, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) released proposed guidelines addressing the complex issue of AI inventorship. The PTO is not the only agency attempting to tackle this issue; jurisdictions...more
The rapid increase in innovation and popularity surrounding AI, its capabilities and seemingly endless applications has created a technological revolution, the magnitude of which hasn’t been seen for decades. This has led to...more
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that outlines a new framework for collaboration between the two...more
December 2023 Federal Circuit Newsletter (Japanese) - Intel Wrongly Denied Opportunity to Litigate License Defense that Could Unwind $2.1 Billion Judgment - In Vlsi Technology LLC v. Intel Corporation, Appeal No....more
On 20 December 2023, the UK Supreme Court unanimously held that UK patent legislation does not permit an AI system to be named as the "inventor" in a patent application. In doing so, the UK Supreme Court reaffirmed earlier...more
Stakeholders accustomed to having “ten more days” to respond to a communication from the European Patent Office will have to update their calendaring systems for documents dated on or after November 1, 2023. This is because...more
Partners Martin Zoltick ("Marty") and Brian Rosenbloom will be panelists on the "Practical Masterclass in Patenting AI at the EPO and USPTO", co-organized with Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP (HLK), a global intellectual property...more
In a “first to file” patent system as exists in the United States and in most countries throughout the world, timing of when to file a patent application is critically important but must be balanced by patentability...more
On August 5, 2022, 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...more
Continuing hostilities by the Russian Federation in Ukraine have garnered a number of responses from countries around the world. These include responses from patent offices, including the United States Patent and Trademark...more
It is well known that in the U.S., abstract ideas, laws of nature, natural phenomena, and products of nature are all excluded from patenting under 35 U.S.C. § 101. This article briefly outlines various U.S. approaches to...more
Many of today’s top-selling drugs worldwide are therapeutic antibodies thus antibody-related inventions can be extremely valuable. Developing antibody therapeutics requires significant resources and time, so it is paramount...more
Intellectual Property counsel often face the dilemma of when to file a patent application: as soon as possible, or wait and gather more support? Filing an application “early” helps to avoid anticipatory prior art but if the...more
Dr. Stephen Thaler created an artificial-intelligence algorithm – named Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience (DABUS) – that includes multiple neural networks (each trained in a given linguistic...more
A variety of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies exist and are being used in biopharma (e.g., discovery and development of drugs, optimization of clinical trial design, identification of novel biological targets and...more
Last fall the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, in Interference no. 106,115, granted leave to Junior Party The University of California/Berkeley, the University of Vienna, and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") to file...more
White & Case Technology Newsflash - As artificial intelligence (AI) evolves, it becomes imperative to examine whether the current intellectual property (IP) legal frameworks, in the US and abroad, are adequate to address...more
As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, patent offices worldwide are taking steps to minimize negative impacts that patent and trademark filers may suffer....more
In a Decision on Petition issued in April, and signed by Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy Robert W. Bahr, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office refused to vacate a Notice to File Missing Parts of...more