HOUSE IP SUBCOMMITTEE TO EXAMINE MEDICINES AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TODAY
The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet will hold a hearing titled “Medicines and IP: Balancing Innovation and Access” today at 10:00 a.m. Scheduled witnesses include KRISTA CARVER (Covington & Burling), MICHAEL CARRIER (Rutgers Law School), RACHEL GOODE (Fresenius Kabi), and JAMIE SIMPSON (Council for Innovation Promotion). Information about the hearing is available on the House Judiciary Committee website. The hearing will be held in 2141 Rayburn House Office Building and streamed online.
In advance of the hearing, IPO President JOHN CHEEK (Tenneco) sent a letter on behalf of IPO to Subcommittee Chair DARRELL ISSA (R-CA) and Ranking Member HANK JOHNSON (D-GA) addressing the role of the patent system in supporting continued biopharmaceutical innovation and patient access and expressing opposition to the ETHIC Act and the Skinny Labels, Big Savings Act.
AI INSIGHTS: FROM PROMPTS TO GOALS – UNDERSTANDING AGENTIC AI
By Matthew R. Carey, Marshall, Gerstein & Borun LLP
“Agentic AI” is seemingly everywhere right now, but the term is often used loosely, and the technical distinctions carry real consequences for how these systems are built, deployed, and protected.
A conventional AI model responds to a prompt and stops: one input, one output. An agent operates more like a personal assistant than a vending machine. Given a goal, it plans a sequence of steps, uses external tools such as search engines or databases, tracks its own progress, and adjusts, all without a human directing each move. Four elements typically come together: a goal, a planning capability, access to tools, and memory of what it has already done.
This shift from single-response models to goal-driven systems changes where the engineering effort goes. The hard problems are less about the underlying language model and more about orchestration: how the agent decides what to do next, how it integrates with tools, how it recovers from errors, and how it maintains state across long tasks. Much of the recent innovation, and much of the competitive differentiation, sits in this orchestration layer.
That same architecture should inform IP strategy. Because an agent distributes its work across many steps, tools, and often several machines or parties, the value of a system rarely sits in one place. Protection strategies built around a single actor performing every step may not capture how the technology actually operates. It is therefore worth considering where value concentrates within the system, what is genuinely novel versus established technique repackaged under a fashionable label, and whether the orchestration logic, the planning method, the tool integration, or the system as a whole is the right target. These choices shape both the strength of protection and the practical ability to enforce it.
AI Insights features IPO members’ perspectives on artificial intelligence and IP law and practice. Views expressed are those of the author. This feature is curated by the IPO AI, Data & New Emerging Technologies Committee. Submissions welcome.
USTR INITIATES SECTION 301 INVESTIGATION OF VIETNAM
On Wednesday the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) published in the Federal Register an initiation of a Section 301 investigation and request for public comments on Vietnam’s acts, policies, and practices related to intellectual property enforcement pursuant to Section 302(b)(2) of the Trade Act. On April 30, USTR published its 2026 Special 301 Report identifying Vietnam as a priority foreign country for its failures to provide persistent and effective enforcement to combat online piracy and sufficient enforcement against widespread counterfeiting, as well as its lack of: 1) effective border enforcement, 2) enforcement actions against unlicensed software use, and 3) criminal measures against cable and satellite signal theft. Written comments in response to the Notice are due July 2.
Earlier this year, IPO submitted extensive comments as part of the 2026 Special 301 Report process. Those comments highlighted counterfeiting and piracy as high-level concerns for rights holders.
JOIN THE TRADE SECRETS COMMITTEE
Trade secrets are an increasingly vital and complex tool in IP management and enforcement strategy. IPO’s Trade Secrets Committee is:
- Promoting education through monthly discussions on misappropriation and protection;
- Drafting white papers comparing trade secret laws across jurisdictions and addressing AI-related trade secret issues; and
- Researching IPO’s position on the inevitable disclosure doctrine.
If trade secret law and practice is part of your work, join a committee that’s deepening expertise and shaping the field. Apply to the Trade Secrets Committee today at http://www.ipo.org/joinacommittee.
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NEXT WEEK ON THE IP CHAT CHANNEL™: AI, COPYRIGHT, AND FAIR USE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Join the IP Chat Channel™ on Tuesday, June 9 at 12:00pm ET for AI, Copyrights and Fair Use: What You Need to Know. This webinar will provide a practical overview of the intersection between Artificial Intelligence and Copyright Law, beginning with foundational copyright principles and an explanation of the Fair Use doctrine under U.S. law. Participants will learn how courts analyze fair use, including the four statutory factors, and how those principles may apply to AI model training, data ingestion, and AI-assisted content creation. The program will also examine significant and emerging litigation involving generative AI, including lawsuits brought by authors, artists, publishers, and media companies against leading technology firms. These cases are addressing critical questions such as whether the use of copyrighted works to train AI models constitutes fair use. The program’s panel BRIAN ADAMS (Qualcomm Inc.), NATALIE PROROK (Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd.), and KATE SCOLARO (Leydig, Voit & Mayer, Ltd.) will also touch on related topics throughout, including the copyrightability of AI created output, jurisdictional concerns, and future trends.
IP Chat Channel™ webinars are free for IPO members. Advance registration is required. CLE offered in most states.