The USPTO has issued guidance on “AI-assisted inventions”. The “Inventorship Guidance for AI-Assisted Inventions” states that, “a natural person must have significantly contributed to each claim in a patent application or patent”. Continue reading AI Inventors
Tag Archives: Patent
Design Bar
The USPTO has announced a separate design patent bar. Existing practitioners can continue practice in all areas but the new bar would allow applicants with degrees in “industrial design,
product design, architecture, applied arts, graphic design, fine/studio arts, or art teacher education” or equivalents.
AI
President Biden issued an executive order today on the regulation of AI systems including on safety test results and standards for red-team testing. In a section on intellectual property, the USPTO was directed to publish guidance on patent inventorship and the use of AI and the Copyright Office to provide recommendations on works produced using AI and the treatment of copyrighted works in AI training.
PTA
CIPO has an announced a consultation on the determination of additional term if a patent was issued after a threshold date unless, after accounting for days to be subtracted, the net number of relevant days prior to issuance falls below the threshold outlined in the Act. The consultation also considers extension of time for requesting examination, suspension of examination during late payment of maintenance fees and requesting priority and early publication on the same day. The consultation period is open until September 8.
CIPO Fee Increases
As posted earlier this month, amendments to the Patent, Trademark and Industrial Design regulations coming into force on January 1, 2024 will adjust most fees by 25%. The amendments were published in today’s Canada Gazette.
CIPO Fee Increases
Amendments to the Patent Rules, Trademark Regulations, Industrial Design Regulations and Copyright Regulations were registered on June 1st incorporating fee increases of about 25% as well as expanding the definition of ‘small entity’. The amendments appear to be generally inline with the versions published for consultation earlier this year. Most of the amendments come into force on January 1, 2024. Continue reading CIPO Fee Increases
US Supreme Court
On Friday, the US Supreme Court granted review in two IP cases:
- Amgen Inc. v. Sanofi – on patent enablement and whether the full scope of the patent has to be enabled.
- Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International – on the scope of the Lanham Act on extraterritorial sales that never reach the United States or confuse US consumers.
CIPO
CIPO has announced that maintenance activities will make several online applications inaccessible for portions of Sunday October 2nd and Monday October 3rd including the General Correspondence application for patents, National Entry Request (NER) Online Solution, Patent Maintenance Fee Electronic Service, Patent E-filing, Industrial Design General Correspondence and Copyright General Correspondence. Patent Rule amendments come into force on October 3rd, including excess claim fees and requests for continued examination, that apply to applications where the request for examination is filed on or after October 3rd.
Patent Life Cycle
I tracked the 42,000 or so patent applications in Canada with a 2001 filing date which all expired by the end of 2021. Only about 17% were still enforceable at expiry but about 30% were in force at the 10 year mark. Overall, about 43% of the original applications (about 18,000) were granted and 118 were litigated in the Federal Court. Continue reading Patent Life Cycle
Patent Decision
The Federal Court issued public reasons for judgment in Rovi Guides v. Videotron, 2022 FC 874. The Court found the four asserted patents invalid for being obvious and/or anticipated and accepted non-infringement defences advanced by the defendant, Videotron. If there had been liability, the Court concluded that the Plaintiff would not have been entitled to an accounting of profits and a design-around cost would have been a reasonable upper bound for any royalty. Videotron was represented by a team from DLA Piper including Bruce Stratton, Alan Macek, Michal Kasprowicz, Gabriella Levkov and Nicole Nazareth.