Insights

Washington – November 5, 2026: Crowell & Moring earned 60 rankings in the 2027 edition of Best Law Firms, including national recognition in 18 practice areas and 41 regional rankings across seven markets.

Washington – October 23, 2026: Crowell & Moring’s Kristof Roox, Jan-Diederik Lindemans, and Justin Hill have been named to IAM Global Leaders 2027, which recognizes leading patent practitioners worldwide.  

London – October 2, 2026: Crowell & Moring has earned recognition across four practice areas in the Legal 500 United Kingdom 2027 rankings and has been named a Firm to Watch for Data Protection, Privacy and Cybersecurity and PATMA: Patent attorneys.

The Ruling, in Plain Terms 

Crocs, Inc. recently filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court (No. 26-421), asking the Court to review and resolve the question: “Whether an agency disposition is final as to some issues, thus triggering deadlines for judicial review, while other issues decided in the same disposition remain subject to further executive or administrative review.”

Following the Board’s November 8, 2024, decision reversing the Examiner’s OTDP rejections of claims 1-18 of U.S. Application No. 17/135,529 (the ’529 Application), the patent application at issue in Ex parte Baurin, the Examiner filed a request for rehearing. On March 5, 2026, USPTO Director Squires convened the ARP and granted sua sponte rehearing. Eleven amicus briefs were entered into the record on April 1, 2026. 

The Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program is a collaborative initiative between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and several foreign patent offices, created to speed up the examination process. Through the PPH, a patent application initially filed with a participating patent office (Office of Earlier Examination, or OEE) can be expedited in another participating intellectual property office, provided it meets specific requirements. According to the USPTO, PPH leverages fast-track examination procedures already in place among participating patent offices to allow applicants to reach final disposition of a patent application more quickly and efficiently than standard examination processing.  

Since the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, generative AI has been a regulatory accelerator for governance of AI writ large. Individuals, organizations, industries, and governments across the world have grappled with the implications of AI, including how it is and could be regulated using existing and new legal frameworks. For example, since our December 2023 update: