In many cases, a successful forecast of a technological trend can be accomplished by just following the patents. However, for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology, a review of US patent applications published since 2010 reveals a number of strategic technology choices being made in the Autonomous Vehicle (AV) space, but no clear view of a singular adopted communication standard. Be that as it may, what is clear is that two competing technologies, Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) – the 802.11p Wi-Fi based standard – and the cellular long-term evolution (LTE)-based Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, being developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), are the industry leaders. Many innovators in this space are picking or switching sides. Others appear unwilling to commit to either technology until a market/government decision has been made, pursuing patent coverage sufficiently generic to read on both technologies.

Five years after Alice Corp. Pty. v. CLS Bank Int'l, 573 U.S. 208 (2014) and the institution of the Alice test, district courts are still wading through precedent set by the Federal Circuit while it attempts to apply the test. Recently, one New Mexico District Court turned to prior art introduced during the prosecution process that was aimed at the questions of novelty and non-obviousness to determine whether there was an "inventive concept" for the Alice/Mayo test.

The doctrine of equivalents is an equitable exception to the basic concept that the patent claims define the limit of claim protection. It is intended to prevent one from making an insubstantial change to a claimed invention to avoid infringement which is defined by the function-way-result test. The doctrine is limited by the prior art, dedication to the public, and prosecution history estoppel.

Robert Downs will be participating as an expert speaker for The Knowledge Group's webcast on September 24th entitled "Protecting Artificial Intelligence: Unraveling the New Wave of IP Challenges and Opportunities."

Sameer Gokhale will attend this annual meeting in Palo Alto, California - on September 24-25th.

David Longo will be participating in the US Bar/JPO Liaison Council Meeting as a Virginia State Bar delegate on October 17-18th, in Tokyo, Japan.

Oblon professionals took International Guests to a Nationals baseball game at Nats Park in Washington, DC.

Eleven Oblon attorneys have been named to the 2020 edition of Best Lawyers in America.

Today, Oblon launched its Life Sciences blog, www.lifesciencesipblog.com , which is designed to report and comment on Intellectual property matters related to the life sciences industry.