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The USPTO's revised guidance on AI-assisted inventions, effective in late 2025, keeps the rule simple. Only a natural pe...
08/28/2026

The USPTO's revised guidance on AI-assisted inventions, effective in late 2025, keeps the rule simple. Only a natural person can be an inventor. AI is a tool, like any other equipment in the lab.

The guidance withdrew the earlier framework that borrowed joint-inventorship factors for the single-person-plus-AI case. What remains is conception, the formation of a definite and permanent idea in a human mind. Running a prompt and accepting the output usually will not meet that bar. Shaping the problem and making the technical choices usually will.

Documentation matters here, because getting inventorship wrong can render a patent unenforceable. Capture who contributed what and which decisions were human-driven. If your team builds with AI in the loop, we can help you set up those records.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

Since June 3, participation in a standards body can move a US patent application out of turn. Under the SPARK pilot, Sta...
08/26/2026

Since June 3, participation in a standards body can move a US patent application out of turn.

Under the SPARK pilot, Standards Participation and Representation Kudos, 91 Fed. Reg. 33,155 (June 3, 2026), the USPTO will expedite examination of certain applications and ex parte PTAB appeals where a US-domiciled applicant meaningfully participated in a voluntary consensus standards development organization. Eligibility is deliberately narrow: small and medium-sized businesses, universities, and nonprofits.

Two details are worth holding onto. The application being expedited does not have to relate to the standards work at all. And the pilot is capped, running until June 3, 2027 or 200 granted petitions, whichever arrives first.

For smaller companies in standards-heavy sectors, telecom, connected devices, AI infrastructure, this changes the internal math on funding SDO participation. The engineering hours spent in working groups now carry a measurable prosecution benefit, which is the first time procedural speed at the Office has been tied to conduct outside it.

A 200-petition cap rewards the teams that move before the question reaches a budget meeting.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

Where you enforce a patent can shape the outcome as much as the patent itself. The fight over TOPCon solar cell technolo...
08/24/2026

Where you enforce a patent can shape the outcome as much as the patent itself. The fight over TOPCon solar cell technology is a clear example.

On March 25, 2026, the International Trade Commission instituted a Section 337 investigation on a complaint from First Solar, which accuses about ten crystalline-silicon manufacturers of infringing U.S. Patent No. 9,130,074. First Solar is asking for a general exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders rather than money damages.

The remedy is the reason. The ITC moves on a fast schedule, and its main tool is exclusion at the border. A general exclusion order can block an entire category of infringing imports, including products from companies that were never named as respondents, which is why an entire industry watches a single filing this closely.

There is a second lesson in how these disputes have unfolded. The same technology has produced different results in different places. Patent challenges have been turned away at the USPTO in one matter, competitor patents have been canceled in another, and a foreign office invalidated a counterpart patent without changing the U.S. rights at all.

For a company with a global supply chain, that means validity and freedom to operate cannot be settled once and assumed everywhere. They have to be worked forum by forum, and the enforcement venue is part of the strategy, not an afterthought.

If your products cross a border and sit in a contested technology, the question worth asking now is whether you know where you stand before a competitor picks the venue for you.

General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

As of July 20, 2026, a US patent filing with any foreign-domiciled applicant or owner must come through a registered US ...
08/21/2026

As of July 20, 2026, a US patent filing with any foreign-domiciled applicant or owner must come through a registered US patent practitioner. The rule reaches every paper filed on or after that date, whatever the application's original filing date.

The USPTO's final rule, Required Use by Foreign Applicants and Patent Owners of a Patent Practitioner, 91 Fed. Reg. 13,510 (Mar. 20, 2026), turns on domicile, not citizenship: legal residence for individuals, principal place of business for entities. One foreign-domiciled party on the application triggers the requirement for the whole file.

The trap is in the mechanics. An application still receives a filing date, but an application data sheet not signed by a practitioner is treated as a mere transmittal. Inventorship is not established and priority and benefit claims do not take effect. Requests that must be made at filing, a nonpublication request or Track One prioritized examination, can be permanently lost.

For foreign associates coordinating US filings, the sequencing matters more than the paperwork. The US practitioner has to be in place before the filing date, not after it, and that is the kind of procedural precision referral relationships are built on.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

Wyeth cleared the prior art with a narrowing amendment. Years later, that same language erased a $107.5 million verdict....
08/19/2026

Wyeth cleared the prior art with a narrowing amendment. Years later, that same language erased a $107.5 million verdict.

In Wyeth LLC v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, No. 2024-2325 (Fed. Cir. July 9, 2026), the Federal Circuit affirmed judgment as a matter of law that the asserted cancer-treatment claims are invalid for lack of enablement. The unit-dosage limitation added during prosecution to distinguish the prior art became part of what the specification had to teach, and the specification never showed how to arrive at the claimed therapeutically effective unit dose.

The court's point is structural. The specification, and not the skilled artisan's own experimentation, must supply the novel aspects of a claim. Language added to survive examination is not free: it raises the enablement bar by exactly the ground it gains over the art.

In pharma, every limitation added to get through examination deserves two readings, one against the prior art and one against the disclosure that will have to carry it at trial. The second reading is the one nobody revisits until it decides the case.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

US Patent 6,637,447 protects a small umbrella, five to seven inches across, that attaches to your beverage.The Beerbrell...
08/17/2026

US Patent 6,637,447 protects a small umbrella, five to seven inches across, that attaches to your beverage.

The Beerbrella issued October 28, 2003 to Mason McMullin, Robert Bell, and Mark See. The claims cover the attachment means, a clip, strap, cup, or foam insulator, and one embodiment adds a pivot joint with a counterweight so the canopy swings aside when you drink.

The subject is whimsical. The drafting is not. The patent never claims the idea of shading a drink. It claims specific mechanical implementations of it, which is what made it allowable and is the same discipline that separates strong claims from weak ones in any technology.

It lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees in 2007, four years after issue. That is not a failure. It is a portfolio working the way it should. Not every filing needs to be carried for twenty years, and sometimes the right call is to stop paying and fund what is actually being used.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

A.L.M. and Ergon granted an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing license under their asphalt-technology patents. The di...
08/13/2026

A.L.M. and Ergon granted an exclusive, worldwide, royalty-bearing license under their asphalt-technology patents. The district court held they had licensed away their right to be in court at all.

In A.L.M. Holding Co. v. Zydex Industries Private Ltd., No. 2025-1317 (Fed. Cir. May 19, 2026), the Federal Circuit reversed. The owners had kept the right to sue infringers, a continuing royalty interest, and approval rights over sublicense terms. That retained right to sue was not rendered illusory by the licensee's rights, and it was enough for Article III standing.

The court separated constitutional standing from the statutory question under section 281, and it declined an invited bright-line rule that owning a patent alone confers standing, keeping the case-by-case reading of what the license actually transferred. The same panel applied the same framework the same day in a nonprecedential companion, Recor Medical v. Medtronic Ireland.

License structure decides enforcement rights years after signing. The clauses that preserved the courthouse door here were negotiated long before anyone contemplated this suit. Worth reading your exclusive licenses for what they keep as carefully as for what they grant.



General information only, not legal advice, and may be attorney advertising. Legal disclaimer: https://www.leehayes.com/legal

For companies with products that are manufactured or used in more than one country, a recent Federal Circuit ruling offe...
08/05/2026

For companies with products that are manufactured or used in more than one country, a recent Federal Circuit ruling offers useful guidance on how U.S. patents apply to cross-border activity.

In VLSI Technology LLC v. Intel Corporation (April 15, 2026), the Federal Circuit pushed back on an overly broad extraterritoriality ruling from the district court — clarifying that U.S. patent rights can extend to certain conduct even when parts of the accused activity occur abroad.

The court also addressed prosecution disclaimer, narrowing its application and reinforcing the principle that patent owners should not be held to positions that were not clearly and unmistakably made during prosecution.

For companies building international IP portfolios, the practical takeaway is encouraging: a well-drafted U.S. patent can provide meaningful protection even when supply chains, manufacturing, or product use span multiple jurisdictions.

The key is precision at the drafting stage — claims that clearly describe where and how the invention operates, without inadvertently limiting scope through prosecution statements.

If your products have an international footprint, it's worth reviewing whether your U.S. patent claims are positioned to capture the full scope of your technology's value.

The USPTO just gave patent owners something they didn't have before: a seat at the table before a reexamination even beg...
08/03/2026

The USPTO just gave patent owners something they didn't have before: a seat at the table before a reexamination even begins.

Under a new procedure announced in an Official Gazette Notice dated April 1, 2026, patent owners may now submit a limited paper before the Office decides whether to initiate an ex parte reexamination.

Previously, a third party could file a reexamination request, and the patent owner had no opportunity to weigh in until after the Office made its decision.

That has changed. Patent owners may now address the threshold question directly — whether the request actually raises a substantial new question of patentability — before the process moves forward.

For patent owners, this is a meaningful opportunity to provide early context and head off weaker requests before they gain traction.

For anyone filing a reexamination request, the practical takeaway is straightforward: the initial submission now carries more weight, and anticipating a patent owner response from the start makes for a stronger filing.

Ex parte reexamination has historically been an underutilized tool. This update makes it more balanced — and more worth understanding.

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