This webinar will focus on specialized ethical issues facing IP lawyers, especially patent attorneys who are registered to practice in patent matters before the USPTO.
The presenter, a registered patent attorney who focuses his practice on ethics for IP lawyers, will discuss topics including inequitable conduct, malpractice avoidance, candor obligations to the USPTO, and other important topics that patent lawyers should be mindful of to avoid the ire of the USPTO’s Office of Enrollment and Discipline. The CLE will also discuss the applicability of the USPTO Rules of Professional Conduct, and their interplay with state rule counterparts.
The articles attached give insights to:
- How AI complicates the legal obligation for patent applicants to disclose material prior art and information, highlighting challenges such as AI’s role in generating inventions, uncovering non- traditional prior art (g., datasets or AI-generated content), and the ethical need for transparency around AI’s contribution despite its lack of legal inventorship status.
- AI’s disruptive impact on intellectual property law, addressing challenges such as patentability, addressing challenges such as patentability of AI-generated inventions, copyright ambiguity over AI- created works, risks to trade secrets from AI-driven data analysis, ethical concerns around algorithmic bias, and regulatory gaps in ownership and liability.
- The ethical and legal dilemmas arising from undisclosed AI use in patent drafting, such as leveraging AI for prior art searches or claim optimization without transparency to the USPTO, risking violations of the duty of candor and inequitable conduct accusations.
- The catastrophic consequences of inequitable conduct in patent law—defined as intentional deception through withholding or representing material information to the USPTO, which can render patents unenforceable, trigger disciplinary investigations, and damage practitioner reputations. Cases like Therasense and GSCleanTechhighlight the ethical tightrope practitioners walk between client advocacy and candor to the USPTO.