I am excited to announce the publication of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA)’s article on “IP Aspects of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality Technologies.” 

The article was authored by the AIPLA’s Augmented Reality(AR) / Virtual Reality(VR) subcommittee, which I had the honor of co-leading with Barrett Spraggins in 2022 (and continue to co-lead in 2023).

I am a co-author of this paper with my fellow AIPLA committee colleagues, who each provided perspectives on AR/VR as it relates to the Metaverse and in view of current utility and design patent law. The authors include Barrett Spraggins, David Pointer,  George Raynal, and Ryan Phelan. 

The article can be found here and was published as part of the AIPLA’s INNOVATE Magazine. The article includes sections on the following topics: 

  • Definitions of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
  • AR and VR Technologies as used in the “Metaverse”
  • Intellectual Property Aspects of AR and VR Technologies, which includes topics on:
    • Trademark filing, Trademark infringement, and Trademarks in view of Non-fungible Tokens 
    • Design Patents in view of the Metaverse
    • Utility Patents in view of the Metaverse – 35 U.S.C. Section 101 Issues (Subject Matter Eligibility)

I look forward to working on this year’s upcoming paper to advance these topics further. 

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PatentNext is moderated by Ryan N. Phelan, a registered U.S. Patent Attorney and Software and Computer Engineer. Ryan previously worked in the IT industry as a consultant at Accenture, where he regularly consulted Fortune 500 companies in software and computing technologies. Ryan is…

PatentNext is moderated by Ryan N. Phelan, a registered U.S. Patent Attorney and Software and Computer Engineer. Ryan previously worked in the IT industry as a consultant at Accenture, where he regularly consulted Fortune 500 companies in software and computing technologies. Ryan is featured in the IAM Strategy 300 & 300 Global Leaders guides, and was selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America© list in the practice area of Patent Law. Ryan is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law where he teaches coursework on Patenting Software Inventions. Learn more about Ryan.