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Send us Fan Mail Uncertainty in patent rights undermines the investment needed to turn scientific breakthroughs into commercial products—but accepting that uncertainty is a choice. In this episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed, Judge Pauline Newman draws on her experience in industry and the policy discussions that helped shape the Federal Circuit to connect today’s life sciences challenges with the conditions that drove an earlier era of patent reform. She explains why predictable, reliable patent protection matters to research investment, commercialization, and the ability to recover the costs of failed research as well as successful discoveries. Her message to IP counsel, industry leaders, and policymakers is direct: addressing the weaknesses of the patent system requires looking beyond how to navigate existing law and engaging in the work of changing it. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail Effective patent litigation requires more than command of the law and technology. It demands an advocacy strategy tailored to the audience, the forum, and the business stakes. Recorded at IPWatchdog’s recent Women’s Forum, this conversation is moderated by Katie O’Sullivan, Senior Counsel and U.S. Litigation Lead at Renesas Electronics. The discussion explores how experienced litigators adapt their approach for judges, juries, and arbitrators—and why understanding a decision maker’s expectations can be as consequential as mastering the merits. The panel examines how to translate complex technologies into clear, persuasive presentations without sacrificing accuracy. From working with engineers and selecting experts who can teach to testing demonstratives and stress-testing analogies, the speakers offer practical approaches to making technical arguments accessible and memorable. They also discuss how litigation teams can test their presentations when budgets do not accommodate mock trials or jury consultants, and why a newcomer’s questions can expose weaknesses that subject matter experts overlook. The conversation brings these lessons together around case themes: developing them early, refining them as discovery unfolds, and integrating them into claim construction, dispositive motions, and trial. O’Sullivan adds an important in-house perspective: a credible trial strategy can strengthen settlement leverage long before a jury is seated. For outside counsel and corporate IP leaders alike, the discussion offers practical insight into aligning technical proof, legal arguments, and persuasive storytelling throughout a patent dispute. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, generative AI’s accelerating adoption raises a critical question: can organizations move quickly without compromising their intellectual property? Recorded at IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum, this panel opens with introductions from Gene Quinn before Stephanie Curcio leads a discussion with Marlene Valderramma, Kendra Ervin and Rinat Shangeeta about how AI is changing enterprise risk—and what IP leaders should do now. The panel examines AI-generated invention disclosures, the importance of identifying human contributions, and the confidentiality risks created by unauthorized “shadow AI” and increasingly autonomous tools. Practical takeaways include mapping AI use across existing workflows, limiting access to sensitive information, maintaining meaningful human review, and scrutinizing vendor terms governing training rights, output ownership and infringement indemnification. As pressure to adopt AI intensifies, the conversation highlights the consequences of deploying tools before legal and IP teams can assess the risks. For counsel and business leaders, the challenge is to build governance that keeps pace with adoption, preserves human expertise, and brings IP into decisions before valuable rights or confidential information are put at risk. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with John Rogitz and Clint Mehall. The conversation examines subject matter eligibility declarations, or SMEDs, and whether this prosecution tool offers a meaningful path past Section 101 rejections—or creates a record that could undermine the patent owner during litigation. The discussion weighs the potential benefits of explaining an invention’s technical improvement against the risks of damaging admissions and questions about support in the original disclosure. Drawing on prosecution experience and patent analytics, Rogitz and Mehall explore when a declaration may be justified, what makes supporting evidence persuasive, and why examiner interviews and appeals deserve consideration before adding sworn statements to the record. They distinguish detailed technical reasoning and comparative evidence from conclusory assertions, while questioning how consistently examiners evaluate that evidence. The discussion also addresses the tension between USPTO eligibility guidance and its implementation across examiners and art units. For in-house counsel and patent practitioners, the central issue is securing commercially meaningful protection without creating avoidable vulnerabilities. The conversation connects stronger application drafting, thoughtful prosecution strategy, and realistic budgets to that objective. It also examines how pressure to minimize prosecution costs can lead to repeated claim narrowing, leaving patent owners paying for rights that no longer cover the products and services they intended to protect. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail What is a patent really worth—and how much of that value can its owner actually capture? This episode of IPWatchdog Unleashed features a panel of litigators and economists from IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum examining the economics of patent licensing from both sides of the negotiating table. The discussion explores how licensing can generate revenue, protect customer relationships, create competitive advantages, and support cross-licensing strategies, with the right approach depending on each party’s commercial objectives. The panel distinguishes the underlying economic value of an invention from the amount parties will accept or pay to resolve a dispute. Litigation costs, financial pressures, and invalidation risks—including Section 101 challenges and post-grant proceedings—can materially change negotiating leverage without changing the technology itself. The conversation also examines what makes a license truly comparable, why apportionment matters, and how agreements covering patents, trade secrets, and know-how can influence subsequent valuation and damages analyses. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Nancy Braman. The conversation focuses on Nancy’s journey through intellectual property returns. From taking PLI patent bar review course before law school, to attending Franklin Pierce Law School, to spending more than three years writing and researching for IPWatchdog and now litigating high-stakes patent and intellectual property disputes for life sciences and technology companies.  Recorded before a live audience at IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum, the conversation explores what it takes to build a career in patent law—and what conventional measures of achievement can miss. From commercial fishing in Alaska to patent prosecution and litigation, Braman’s experience illustrates how resilience, deliberate follow-through, and meaningful professional relationships create opportunities. Quinn and Braman discuss the practical realities of developing talent in a demanding profession, including increasingly early law firm recruiting and the pressure on students to make career decisions before receiving their first-semester grades. They offer concrete guidance on approaching mentors, making professional outreach personal, and communicating the value of an unconventional background. For aspiring practitioners and those responsible for hiring and mentoring them, the discussion examines how potential is recognized and cultivated. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Fran Cruz and Marlene Valderrama. Recorded before a live audience following IPWatchdog’s Women’s IP Forum, the conversation brings together perspectives from Juristat and Halliburton to explore how authentic relationships drive business development, career advancement, and more effective IP operations. The discussion examines what earns the attention of overstretched in-house teams: understanding their business, identifying specific challenges, and offering insights that make their jobs easier. From patent portfolio reviews to maintenance-fee decisions, the guests explain how careful listening and tailored outreach create opportunities to deliver value. As AI fuels a growing volume of generic messages, preparation, relevance, and follow-through become critical differentiators. Gene, Fran, and Marlene also explore the distinction between mentorship and active sponsorship, the importance of referrals, and why networking matters even for professionals who are not seeking clients. For IP practitioners and leaders, the conversation offers practical guidance on building trusted relationships, exchanging useful insights, and translating professional engagement into lasting business and career opportunities. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, IPWatchdog President Renee C. Quinn, speaks with Coke Morgan Stewart about her time leading the USPTO and her new role as president and CEO of the Council for Innovation Promotion. Stewart describes the operational pressures she encountered at the agency, from the patent application backlog and hiring freeze to the challenge of leading a largely remote workforce through rapid change. The conversation turns to the uncertainty facing patent owners: eligibility questions, limited confidence in remedies, and repeated validity challenges, including proceedings before the PTAB. Stewart explains why strong examination and agency action matter, but argues that lasting improvements to patent rights require Congress to act. Recorded at IPWatchdog’s annual Women’s IP Forum, the discussion also explores leadership under pressure, career transitions, and the difference between mentoring and sponsorship. Stewart offers practical advice on building relationships with people who can champion your career—and on asking them for help with a specific purpose. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Steve Caltrider. Caltrider, Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and former General Patent Counsel at Eli Lilly, brings perspectives from nonprofit research and pharmaceutical practice to a central question: how does IP help move discoveries from the laboratory to patients? The conversation examines the role of patent protection in supporting investment in life sciences innovation and distinguishes innovation incentives from challenges such as generic drug supply and market concentration. Caltrider argues that confidence in patent rights depends on improving patent quality at the examination stage. He and Quinn discuss uncertainty around § 101 eligibility for diagnostics and emerging therapies, the effect of PTAB review on investment, and the need to balance error correction with a system that allows innovation to proceed. They also consider how hindsight can distort obviousness analysis and why practitioners should act as stewards of the patent system. The discussion turns to AI’s potential to improve prior-art searches and give applicants earlier feedback, helping examiners focus on the key issues while preserving human judgment in patentability decisions. Caltrider also explores how simplifying patent law and reducing defensive prosecution practices could enable more candid engagement with examiners. For IP professionals, the conversation offers a practical look at how stronger examination and clearer rules could support more reliable patents and sustained investment. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Hilary Preston. A partner at Vinson & Elkins and co-head of the firm’s intellectual property and technology litigation practice, Preston discusses the rapidly expanding AI data center ecosystem and the complex technology, infrastructure, and legal risks emerging alongside it. The conversation examines how power availability, grid capacity, cooling systems, on-site generation, and geographic location are shaping data center development. Quinn and Preston explore why these issues are becoming potential patent battlegrounds, how rights holders may target operators rather than technology suppliers, and why both hyperscaler and smaller, purpose-built facilities must account for IP risk across interconnected systems and vendors. Preston also explains the importance of “innovation governance” in projects moving at unprecedented speed. The discussion addresses strategic choices between patent and trade secret protection, jointly developed technology, ownership rights, indemnification, public disclosures, and the need to identify and manage risk before construction begins. The episode also considers the emerging challenges surrounding AI-related patents, including patent eligibility under Section 101 and written description and enablement under Section 112, offering practical guidance for developers, investors, technology providers, and legal professionals navigating this rapidly evolving market. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Bijou Mgbojikwe, who is Senior Policy Counsel at the Entertainment Software Association. They discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping the video game industry and creating new challenges at the intersection of copyright, the First Amendment, right of publicity, content moderation, and consumer protection. The conversation examines why policymakers must distinguish between harmful deepfakes and digital replicas used in legitimate creative works. Mgbojikwe explains how the rapid expansion of state-level AI legislation is producing a costly and increasingly unworkable regulatory patchwork. Broad disclosure, labeling, watermarking, and content-provenance requirements can create disclosure fatigue, disrupt gameplay and immersion, and inadvertently sweep in benign technologies that have been used in video games for decades. The discussion emphasizes the value of risk-based regulation, targeted legislative language, and industry self-regulation—particularly when addressing online safety and protecting children. The episode also considers the long-term consequences for innovation, smaller game developers, and the national digital economy. Quinn and Mgbojikwe discuss the growing need for federal coordination, the dangers of imposing content-based or product-liability theories on software, and the importance of relying on existing legal doctrines where they already address emerging AI issues. For IP professionals, the conversation offers a practical framework for evaluating AI legislation: support legitimate consumer protections while preserving the creative freedom and technological experimentation that drive the video game industry forward. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Robert Plotkin. A patent attorney, computer scientist, and longtime software and AI practitioner, Plotkin discusses the relationship between hardware and software innovation and why legal distinctions that ignore how technology actually operates can produce flawed patent analysis. Quinn and Plotkin examine the continuing challenges surrounding patent eligibility, including the tendency to use Section 101 as a shortcut for questions that more appropriately belong under enablement, written description, novelty, or non-obviousness. They also discuss the risks of treating software as inherently simple or predictable, and the importance of evaluating AI and software inventions on their technological facts rather than through rigid labels that ignore deliberate design choices. The conversation also addresses the emerging AI patent gold rush and the difference between patent volume and patent value. Plotkin explains why companies should identify the specific technological capability they had to develop, determine whether it provides a meaningful competitive advantage, and align prosecution strategy with the business objective—whether product protection, fundraising, acquisition, monetization, or licensing. For startups and established companies alike, the discussion offers a practical framework for deciding what to patent, what may be better protected as a trade secret, and when an invention is sufficiently developed to justify pursuing patent protection. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, Gene Quinn examines why artificial intelligence is unlikely to eliminate experienced patent lawyers—but will expose practitioners whose work consists primarily of commodity production. AI is already transforming prior-art searching, claim comparison, application drafting, office-action responses, and portfolio analysis. The strategic opportunity is not simply to produce more patents faster, but to use AI to reach a substantially better work product within the time and budget previously required to reach what courts today increasingly find to be incomplete. Quinn discusses the limits of AI-assisted patent practice, including technically impossible embodiments, unsupported combinations, inaccurate characterizations of prior art, and plausible language that collapses under technical scrutiny. AI remains a tool, not an inventor, and the use of AI cannot relieve patent professionals of responsibility for determining what is true, what works, what the inventor actually conceived, and what the law permits them to claim. For patent owners and in-house counsel, the episode offers a direct warning against treating AI as merely a justification for reducing outside-counsel fees while continuing to demand commercially useful rights that can survive scrutiny and diligence in the real world. The episode also addresses a workforce issue that is rarely discussed: if AI performs much of the entry-level work traditionally used to train junior lawyers, patent agents, and searchers, how will the next generation develop professional judgment? Quinn offers a practical roadmap that includes mastering patent-law fundamentals, using AI as a tutor and adversarial reviewer, becoming skilled at inventor interviews, developing technical depth, and studying how patents fail. He also argues for deliberate collaboration between younger professionals who bring AI fluency and experienced practitioners who contribute legal judgment, technical skepticism, and strategic perspective. The future of patent practice will belong to professionals who know not only how to use AI, but also what to question, what to verify, and what matters to the client. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Joel Meyer. An IP attorney and innovation strategist with more than 30 years of experience building and monetizing technology portfolios, Meyer joins Gene to examine how the AI transformation is reshaping innovation and IP strategy. Drawing on his experience with digital watermarking and other advanced technologies, they explore software and functional claiming, the persistent challenges surrounding patent eligibility, and why many concerns labeled as “abstractness” may be better addressed through Section 112—and, in some cases, Section 103. The conversation then turns to the strategic choices facing startups and growth companies, including when to patent, when to rely on trade secrets, and why simply accumulating patent numbers is rarely the right objective. Meyer and Quinn discuss the importance of building foundational patent specifications that preserve optionality, support protection at multiple levels of generality, and anticipate competitive technologies, alternative implementations and future market developments. They also examine AI-assisted patent drafting and searching, including why an AI-generated application that looks polished may still be little more than a product specification without the strategic architecture necessary to create durable IP value. Finally, Gene and Joel explore the evolving role of IP counsel as a strategic business partner rather than merely a producer of patents. For emerging companies in particular, effective IP strategy requires understanding the technology, competitive landscape, business model and investor expectations—and identifying the protectable advantages that can become meaningful barriers to entry. The takeaway is a forward-looking discussion about using patents, trade secrets and AI tools together to create value, anticipate disruption and preserve strategic options as technologies and markets evolve. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.

Send us Fan Mail This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, Brad Close, Phil Goter, Kyle Vallecillo, and Matheus Ramalho discuss enforcement driven economics. Continuing the podcast’s examination of patent monetization, the conversation moves beyond portfolio diligence to the far more difficult question of execution: what patent owners must understand once they are prepared to pursue licensing or enforcement, and why capital, timing, and deal structure often determine whether valuable patent rights produce a commercial return. The panel examines how non-recourse litigation financing and alternative fee arrangements distribute cost, risk, and potential recovery among patent owners, law firms, and funders. The discussion also explores patent pools, special-purpose vehicles, cross-licensing, and supply relationships, as well as the reputational and strategic considerations that influence whether a company asserts patents in its own name. Throughout, the participants emphasize that litigation is frequently a means of creating negotiating leverage—but that the desired business resolution must remain compatible with the economics of the enforcement campaign. The conversation also highlights Brazil’s increasingly important role in global monetization strategies, including preliminary injunctions, disgorgement-based damages, and other pressure points that may be unavailable in the United States. The panel closes with practical guidance for building monetization-ready portfolios: draft claims with provable infringement in mind, avoid unnecessarily costly limitations, preserve multiple independent patent families, and recognize that one newly issued patent rarely provides sufficient leverage. The result is a candid assessment of what it now takes to move from owning patents to extracting meaningful value from them. Visit us online at IPWatchdog.com. You can also visit our channels at YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Instagram and Facebook.