As recent U.S. Patent and Trademark Office developments shift the patent challenge landscape, challengers will need to reconsider long-held assumptions about forum selection for validity challenges, and patent owners should prepare to defend against more ex parte filings, say attorneys at Marshall Gerstein.

My involvement in martial arts, specifically Isshin-ryu, which has principles rooted in the eight codes of karate, has been one of the most foundational in the development of my personality, and particularly my approach to challenges — including in my practice of law, says Kaitlyn Stone at Barnes & Thornburg.

Amid cyberattacks following the outbreak of the Iran war, the U.S. government is acutely concerned about significant threats to U.S.-based infrastructure, but organizations can take several steps to prepare for such threats by being proactive and responding promptly to incidents, say attorneys at Vedder.

As regulators finalize rulemaking for Minnesota's sweeping restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in consumer and commercial products, manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers should pay attention — especially to how the pathway for essential use exemptions ends up being defined, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

California's recent enactment of A.B. 692 disrupts how employers structure sign-on bonuses, retention payments and other incentives tied to continued employment, but employers that adjust their compensation strategies can attract and retain talent while managing their compliance risks, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

The Federal Maritime Commission's rejection of multiple common carriers' requests last month to implement emergency shipping surcharges in response to conflict in the Mideast signals a decisive shift in the agency's regulatory posture toward stronger protections for shippers — with important implications for all supply chain participants, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

Remarks made by Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig at the Futures Industry Association's conference last month provided the most comprehensive articulation of his regulatory agenda and signaled a shift in the CFTC's regulatory posture, including a rare focus on agency coordination and support for digital asset innovation, say attorneys at Willkie.

Recent subpoenas to Adidas and Hilton deployed in Blasket Renewables v. Spain, pending in D.C. federal court, show arbitration award recovery to be a disciplined exercise in constructing visibility, applying pressure and sequencing procedural advantage, says Josep Galvez at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square.

Even attorneys without a background in statistics can effectively vet the general concepts of a statistical analysis by asking targeted questions and can thereby reinforce the credibility and relevance of expert testimony — or expose its weaknesses, say Katrina Schydlower and Christopher Cunio at Hunton and Kevin Cahill at FTI Consulting.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent conclusion that earned wage access is not "credit" for purposes of Regulation Z of the Truth in Lending Act improves on prior guidance on these products in several meaningful ways, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

An amendment to the New York state Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibiting applicants' or employees' consumer credit history from being used in employment-related decisions statewide will take effect in a few days, so employers should update policies, train teams and audit positions for narrow exemptions, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to include microplastics in its draft sixth Contaminant Candidate List under the Safe Drinking Water Act could influence consumer fraud claims and enforcement by state attorneys general, as well as claims against manufacturers from entities facing regulatory compliance costs, says Arie Feltman-Frank at Jenner & Block.

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy identifies practice tips from three recent rulings involving allegations of racial discrimination in mortgage applications, health insurance networks and actual cash value losses.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's new artificial intelligence search pilot aims to introduce earlier visibility into the prior art landscape, potentially influencing patent filing considerations and shifting the role of counsel to an earlier stage of the prosecution process, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

President Donald Trump's recent executive order to combat fraudulent "Made in America" claims in advertising directs the Federal Trade Commission to deem online marketplaces' failure to verify third-party origin claims as unlawful, but such a rule would likely run into Section 230's publisher immunity doctrine, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

The Trump administration’s newly created task force to eliminate fraud and the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s recent proposals to scale back certain elements of the federal sentencing framework seem to point in opposite directions, creating a collision of policy priorities that may reshape how fraud cases are charged, negotiated and sentenced for years to come, says David Tarras at Tarras Defense.

The recently concluded Australia-European Union free trade agreement could be a springboard for a more ambitious initiative bringing together the EU and the economies of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a critical mass capable of shaping norms across subsidies, sustainability disciplines and competition policy, says Alan Yanovich at Akin Gump.

The policy landscape for peptides is undergoing a significant shift under the Trump administration, moving toward a complex system of verified compounding and complementary enforcement that will likely bring peptides firmly back into the sphere of legitimate consumer products, say attorneys at Sheppard.

California's recent amendments to strengthen its Equal Pay Act and Pay Transparency Act aim to shrink the wage gap, not only for women, but also for nonbinary and transgender employees, creating new compliance obligations for employers and increasing their potential exposure, say attorneys at the Jhaveri-Weeks Firm.