Current developments in intellectual property law.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provisions highlight an environment of uneasy compromise. Originally published by Investor’s Digest. Reprinted with permission. During the past two decades, YouTube has operated at the uneasy intersection of copyright law and mass participation. The platform’s scale, with hundreds of hours of video uploaded every minute, has made it both a showcase …
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Rhetoric may be shifting toward an emphasis on patent quality and enforcement behavior. Originally published by Investor’s Digest. Reprinted with permission. For more than two decades, few terms in intellectual property law have carried as much rhetorical force as “patent troll.” Used to describe entities that enforce patents without manufacturing products, the label has influenced court decisions, …
Why intellectual property education belongs in every school— and how to make it happen. Originally published by Investor’s Digest. Reprinted with permission. Even though intellectual property has become a central element of innovation, entrepreneurship, engineering and creative industries, and even though students encounter intellectual property issues long before they enter the workforce, most receive little or no …
Heads: Lawful and necessary tool Tails: Unregulated IP rights infringer. Originally published by Investor’s Digest. Reprinted with permission. Artificial intelligence has moved from novelty to necessity at a pace few technologies have ever matched. Generative AI systems now draft text, design products, compose music and write software code—often in seconds. For inventors and creators, this …
In a Federal Register Notice published October 27, 2025 (“Notice”), the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a new pilot program called the “Streamlined Claim Set Pilot Program” (hereinafter “Pilot Program”). This article considers (1) requirements to participate in the Pilot Program, (2) effects on applications that are accepted to the Pilot Program, (3) …
Continue reading “Fewer Claims in the Fast Lane: USPTO’s Streamlined Claim Set Pilot Program”
In an increasingly interconnected world, authors and rights holders must understand how their copyrights are treated beyond U.S. borders. Despite the global nature of creative content distribution, international copyright law remains fundamentally territorial, leading to uncertainty over how far U.S. copyright protections extend. While not mandatory, registering a work with the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) …
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued a notice that a data security incident exposed domicile addresses of numerous trademark applicants who filed applications between February 2020 and March 2023. A copy of the first page of the notice is below: The USPTO stated that the incident occurred when a vulnerability in …
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Many companies, including U.S. companies, find manufacturing abroad attractive because of its affordable costs, capacity, and distribution networks. Typically discussions or negotiations with a foreign manufacturer will concern the type of product to be produced, which often involves providing the manufacturer with sufficient detail to enable the manufacturer to provide a proposal. These seemingly harmless …
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Recently, Jennifer Ko Craft (Member, Las Vegas) and John Krieger (Member, Las Vegas) presented at ACC Nevada’s monthly virtual CLE webinar on “The Who, What, Why, and How of NFTs, the Metaverse, and IP.” They discussed the basics of blockchain technology and opportunities in the metaverse as well as enforcement strategies for protecting digital assets. …
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What is a freedom to operate opinion, and why is it important? A freedom to operate opinion (FTO) is a legal opinion from a qualified intellectual property attorney that concludes a proposed commercial product or process may be made, used, sold, or offered for sale without infringing another party’s intellectual property rights. Although there is …
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