In recent years, inter partes review, or IPR, has been the best-known Patent Office procedure for challenging issued patent claims. Now, recent developments at the USPTO have made ex parte reexamination worth a closer look. Why the renewed interest? The Patent Office has recently changed how it handles discretionary denial issues in IPR and post-grant review proceedings. In 2025, the USPTO announced an interim process that separates discretionary-denial issues from the merits

In closely held family companies, intellectual property is often treated as a shared asset in much the same way as reputation or customer relationships. That works until it doesn't. When relationships shift, whether through succession, disagreement, divorce, or a potential sale, the question of who actually owns the company’s core intellectual property becomes determinative. At that point, informal understandings give way to formal rights, and many businesses discover that ow

In the automotive supply chain, forecasts are everywhere and commitments are rare. Tier 1 suppliers are routinely asked to plan production, secure materials, and invest in capacity based on projections that are expressly non-binding. When those forecasts shift, often with little notice, the financial consequences fall almost entirely on the supplier. This imbalance is not new, but it has become more acute. Electrification timelines continue to move. Consumer demand remains un

Companies sometimes choose trade secret protection over filing patent applications to avoid public disclosure and reduce upfront cost, particularly where patent infringement would be difficult to detect or patentability may be uncertain. That decision can be entirely rational and is often wise. But it carries a risk: what happens if a third party later obtains a patent covering similar technology? At that point, the question is no longer how to protect the innovation. It is w

Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements have become a central tool for the Department of Defense to engage non-traditional contractors, particularly in areas such as advanced manufacturing, materials, and rapid prototyping. Whether the program sits with the Navy, the Army, or the Air Force, these arrangements allow prime contractors to access capabilities that would otherwise fall outside the traditional defense industrial base. When those collaborations succeed, a predi

Recent reporting described tension between the U.S. Department of Defense and AI developer Anthropic over how advanced artificial intelligence systems could be used within defense environments. The episode did not result in litigation, but it highlights a broader issue: federal procurement frameworks are still catching up to the realities of modern AI technology. The Disagreement That Sparked the Discussion According to reports, the disagreement emerged during discussions abo

Many trademark problems don’t start in the legal department. They start in design, marketing, or social media. This is where a phrase that looks great but does not actually function as a trademark. Let's not do that. Here is now to use selected marks the best way for legal purposes. What Brand Managers Need to Know About “Failure to Function” in Trademarks Today, one of the fastest-growing reasons trademarks are refused or weakened is something called “failure to function.” A

For years, defense contractors have been told that the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) is coming. Then it stalled. Then it returned in revised form. After enough false starts, it became easy to tune it out—just another compliance initiative perpetually on the horizon. That instinct is understandable. It is also increasingly risky. What actually changes in 2026 is not the existence of the rule, but its practical consequences. That is when some contractors—qu

Generative AI tools are now embedded in daily work across organizations. Employees use them to draft emails, memos, summarize documents, and brainstorm strategy. In many cases, that use happens casually and without consultation with legal. What feels like a productivity shortcut to an employee can look very different from the perspective of in-house counsel. The reality facing legal departments in 2026 is not whether employees are using AI tools in ways that conflict with com

Many in-house lawyers inherit export controls without warning. One day it is contracts or IP; the next day someone tells you engineering, HR, and IT are now an “export risk.” That is not an exaggeration. EAR and ITAR regulate who inside your company is legally allowed to know what. Export controls are not mainly about shipping products. They are about information . Design drawings, source code, test data, manufacturing processes, and technical manuals can all become regulated

After our Part I post on the vocabulary of startup funding, we sought to provide additional guidance to founders with new products. Their product exists in some stage of development. There’s early interest—maybe a pilot customer or two. The founder has started hearing phrases like “traction,” “runway,” and “institutional capital,” often in the same week. This is typically where Michigan founders begin to feel a little unmoored—not because the business is weak, but because fun

If you are building a startup in Michigan, fundraising can feel opaque—not because capital is unavailable, but because it comes in stages , each with its own logic, expectations, and tradeoffs. This post is meant to demystify those stages by explaining why they exist, what they are designed to fund, and how Michigan founders typically experience them. Rather than treating funding rounds as labels, it helps to see them as checkpoints in a company’s development. Each round answ

For more than a decade, § 101 has been the dark cloud over U.S. patent practice. Even companies with sophisticated R&D pipelines routinely find themselves stuck in eligibility quicksand, watching well-designed innovations get bounced as “abstract ideas” or “mere data processing.” Yet the surprising truth is this: the companies that consistently avoid § 101 headaches aren’t doing anything exotic. They aren’t filing longer applications, or denser ones, or even necessarily more

Government shutdowns create widespread operational uncertainty. The impact on intellectual property agencies varies significantly because these offices are funded in different ways. For businesses, creators, and in-house counsel, understanding those distinctions is key to maintaining rights and avoiding preventable delays. USPTO: Continuing Operations Under Fee-Funded Reserves The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) remains open and operating normally. Unlike many federa

As the calendar winds down, most businesses are focused on closing the books and planning for the next fiscal year. But one...

The Harvard Letter: A Wake-Up Call In August 2025, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent Harvard University a letter that landed like a...

In the age of smartphones and viral videos, what you say or do online—and even off-duty in public—can quickly become everyone’s business....

Artificial intelligence (AI) is quickly transforming industries and businesses. Governments worldwide are catching up. Expect new laws...

Intellectual property (IP) plays a central role in driving innovation for cleaner energy, eco-friendly products, and green technologies....

The U.S. Department of Commerce is considering a dramatic change to the patent maintenance fee system: replacing or supplementing the...