Patent portfolios often span multiple related entities – a parent corporation and its subsidiaries, spinouts, or partners. When patent applications share overlapping subject matter, a US Patent Examiner may raise an obviousness type double patenting (ODP) rejection. The usual fix, a terminal disclaimer (TD) pursuant to common ownership, is not available when the patents are owned by different entities. This can have very real effects when a parent company assigns some patent applications in a portfolio, such as application-focused patents, to one wholly owned subsidiary while other foundational patents remain with another wholly owned subsidiary. IP attorneys Grant Ehrlich and Kim Vines take a look at double patenting and more in this Stites & Harbison Client Alert.

In Kwong v. United States, No. 23-267 (Fed. Cl. 11/25/25), the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that certain tax deadlines were automatically postponed for the entire COVID-19 disaster period plus 60 days. As a result, the court found that under the prior version of IRC Sec. 7508A(d), the suspension of underpayment interest and failure-to-file or failure-to-pay penalties was mandatory from January 20, 2020, through July 10, 2023. The decision invalidated Treasury Regulation Sec. 301.7508A-1(g)(3)(ii) limiting this mandatory postponement to one year. The decision is not affected by a November 2021 amendment to the statute, which was not retroactive. Tax attorney Bill Joseph takes a look at what this decision.