The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has reportedly approved a patent application for a high-capacity, double-fuselage aircraft design submitted by Airbus in October 2008.

In perhaps the most concrete sign of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's renewed commitment to efficiency, the agency's first four satellite office destinations have now been confirmed. The previously announced Detroit office will be joined by sites in Dallas, Denver and California's fabled Silicon Valley.

The first to file provision of the America Invents Act may not go into effect until next March, but biomedical companies need to be diligently preparing today. Research and business development teams should already be in close communication with one another, according to Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, surveying intellectual property pipelines and removing administrative obstacles that could delay invention disclosure processes.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh sided with Apple this week in a patent dispute that will now prevent Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the United States. This marks a significant decision for the mobile marketplace, as Apple has effectively stunted the growth of one of the few legitimate rivals to its industry-leading iPad.

With legislators still struggling to craft an appropriate solution to the hot-button issue of digital copyright enforcement, the Obama administration has extended an olive branch to the general public in hopes of inspiring productive conversations.

As students from around the world migrate to the United States to take advantage of superior post-secondary education opportunities, it appears as though American colleges and universities are getting as much as they give. According to the latest report released by the Partnership for a New American Economy, foreign-born students are behind 76 percent of the patents awarded to the nation's top 10 patent-generating schools.

Biotechnology firms have traditionally been among the most active patrons of the U.S. patent system, filing applications to protect initial ideas and issuing licenses to monetize inventions and further their development. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has underscored the power of this relationship once again by quantifying the effects of intellectual property management at all levels of the research life cycle.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has extended the window for its After Final Consideration Pilot (AFCP) in order to further evaluate the program. The pilot program is now set to end on September 30, pushed back from the original June 16 close date.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has consistently embraced the role of facilitator in its dealings with the entrepreneurial community. But as dynamic technologies have posed new questions to the American intellectual property system, not all inventors have been pleased with the answers. To sort out fact from fiction in the complicated relationship between the two sides, attorney Leonid Kravets recently adopted a unique empirical approach.

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director David Kappos made his way to Capitol Hill this week to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the first oversight hearing for the America Invents Act. Kappos reported consistent compliance with the legislation's prescribed implementation framework and elaborated on future strategies for bringing harmony to the international patent system.