Each year for the past 25 years, the law schools at Berkeley and Stanford jointly hold the Advanced Patent Law Institute (APLI) to keep us up to date on patent law. The event covers both patent litigation and patent “prosecution” (i.e., working with patent examiners to secure new patent rights).
As the APLI turns 25, SankerIP is a proud sponsor. Today, I had the honor to be the presiding officer for the patent prosecution track, and I participated on two panels. I discussed the USPTO guidance on inventorship (a human must make a “significant contribution” to an invention), subject matter eligibility (the continuing saga of what inventions are considered “too abstract” to be patented), and the evolving standard for “ordinary skill in the art” when people have easy access to generative AI tools.
Special thanks to the Stanford Law School and Stanford’s incredible Mark Lemley for hosting the event, and special thanks to my colleagues from Berkeley Law’s BCLT for organizing the event, including Wayne Stacy, Abril Delgado, Alexis Goett, and Richard Fisk.
See you all next December for the 26th annual Berkeley-Stanford APLI!