AI Hot Topics: The AI-Friendly Patent Office: A New Era or a House of Cards

Please join the Data Science and AI Academy for the AI Hot Topic series, an opportunity for people curious about AI to network with experts, scholars and practitioners. Each month, a small group from industry and academia will explore a new topic in AI research, ethics, and practice. Through these conversations, we will envision new opportunities to build industry-academia-government partnerships, collaborations, and community.

REQUIRED PPT: AI-Assisted Inventorship to prepare for the conversation on October 15, 2026.

Title: The AI-Friendly Patent Office: A New Era or a House of Cards

Description: Recent policy changes from the USPTO suggest a more “AI-friendly” landscape for both patenting AI technologies and patenting inventions developed with AI assistance. But the USPTO cannot itself rewrite the Patent Act; Congress and federal courts retain the final word.

This panel will examine the tension between the USPTO’s evolving policies, the governing statutory and judicial constraints, and the practical realities of using generative AI in workflows that produce new technologies.

Panelists:
University Leadership: Bill Rand, NC State University, Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Analytics
Legal representation for NC State: Greg Hunt, Jenkins, Taylor & Hunt, Patent Attorney
Industry: Engineering: Michael Gagliardo, Staff Software Engineer, Github
Industry: Engineering Management: Marina Harrell, MBA, Former Director, Software Engineering

Moderator/Legal: Jordan Glassman, Patent Attorney, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLPJordan Glassman, Patent Attorney