Imagine That IP Law Blog

Increasingly, public AI tools that appear to be impressive are tempting to use for research, technology development, document preparation, and general queries on a variety of consequential issues including law in general, and patents in particular.  However, submitting information to a public AI tool can result in several overlapping dangers, such as patentability problems, loss of trade secret protections, breach of confidentiality obligations, and even export-control violations. 

Below, this article outlines some of the dangers that individuals, companies, and law firm ... Read More ›

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now a part of U.S. design patent examination, but not in the way some practitioners may expect. The latest public USPTO materials do not identify a new, post-DesignVision AI tool dedicated to design patent examination. Instead, the more important development appears to be that DesignVision has moved from a newly announced search tool to a routine part of the design examination workflow.

The USPTO launched DesignVision in July 2025 as “the first artificial intelligence (AI)-based image search tool available to design patent examiners” through ... Read More ›

In most commercially significant inventions, strategic filing of various types of “child” patent applications (patent applications extending from an original or “parent” patent application) in various worldwide jurisdictions is useful in capturing the full value of an original invention. The types of child applications include continuation, continuation-in-part, and divisional applications. The following notable distinctions are worth considering before filing a child application in any jurisdiction.

The first distinction is between continuation and ... Read More ›