This week on IPWatchdog Unleashed, our host and the founder of IPWatchdog, Gene Quinn, speaks with Rama Elluru, who is Senior Advisor for the Special Competitive Studies Project, which is a bipartisan non-profit initiative, which makes recommendations to strengthen America's long-term competitiveness for a future where AI and other emerging technologies reshape our national security, economy, and society. Rama brings a rare cross-disciplinary perspective to the conversation, having worked as a computer scientist, patent attorney, Administrative Patent Judge at the USPTO, and national security policy advisor. The discussion begins with her unconventional path into intellectual property, including her early work on embedded software tools for F-16 fighter jets, her clerkships at the ITC and Federal Circuit, her private practice experience, and her work at the USPTO as AI began to emerge as a strategic policy issue.

The conversation then turns to the accelerating intersection of AI, patent law, and national competitiveness. Quinn and Elluru discuss whether the current U.S. patent system adequately incentivizes AI-related innovation, particularly as generative AI evolves toward more autonomous, agentic capabilities. They explore the hard questions policymakers will soon face around AI-assisted inventorship, patent eligibility, drug discovery, scientific research, and whether existing legal frameworks can keep pace with technologies that are advancing far faster than Congress, agencies, and courts typically move.

Finally, Quinn and Elluru address the broader national security implications of intellectual property policy. They discuss AI-enabled fraud, workforce disruption, the need for guardrails and meaningful penalties for malicious uses of AI, and why IP must be understood as a core pillar of economic and national security strategy. Elluru explains why policymakers often fail to connect patent policy with strategic competition, despite the fact that countries like China already treat IP as a lever of national power. The episode closes with a clear takeaway: if America wants to lead in AI and emerging technologies, intellectual property policy cannot remain an afterthought.

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