2020 is officially here! In order to best prepare for the new year in patent policy, let's take a look at some top stories from 2019 with a lasting impact.

Patents for Humanity is the USPTO awards competition recognizing inventors and innovators who develop game-changing technology to meet global humanitarian challenges. With the application deadline quickly approaching, we take a look at some of the past award recipients and celebrate their impact on society today.

With concern growing about the United States’ ability to remain the dominant force in the global innovation economy, the STRONGER Patents Act is intended to restore and strengthen the U.S. patent system by making it easier for patent owners to enforce their intellectual property rights.

The USPTO has announced its intention to extend the After Final Consideration Pilot (AFCP) 2.0 program through September 30, 2020. The program had been set to expire on September 30, 2019.

The USPTO recently hosted a webinar about the general approach to interpreting claims and how the specification interacts with and modifies those claims. With the goal of providing answers to common examiner questions, the webinar specifically discussed the importance of the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of each claim, how to handle claim limitations, and the added difficulty of limitations related to 35 USC 112(f) (aka “Means-or-Step-Plus-Function” Limitations). The hope is to create consistent examination guidance that ensures all claims will be interpreted similarly by anyone of ordinary skill in the art. 

If the first six months of 2019 are any indication, this year will be a year of reform. 

In June, we marked the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 573 U.S. 208 (2014). Far from being settled law, questions of subject matter eligibility have dominated the conversation about patents in the courts, Congress, and the USPTO during the first half of the year. The continued controversy surrounding the Alice case half a decade after it was decided vividly demonstrates its unpopularity and underscores the broad consensus that the time for reform is now.

Elsewhere, the Supreme Court also issued two decisions focusing on provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA), while theft of IP assets by Chinese firms continues to plague U.S. businesses..