This panel will examine how double patenting arises in tech company patent portfolios, how ex parte reexam differs from other post-grant proceedings vis a vis double patenting, and how it can be used to invalidate vulnerable patents. Our panel includes both an in-house tech company lawyer and a law firm lawyer with relevant first-hand experience, and a law firm attorney who was former head of the USPTO’s Central Reexamination Unit.
The Federal Circuit decision twenty months ago in Gilead v. Natco arose out of ANDA litigation over patents on anti-viral drugs, and tremors from that decision – which expanded the universe of patents vulnerable to charges of double patenting — are being widely felt in the pharma and biotech industry. But life sciences companies are not the only ones to find themselves with Gilead’s problem: after asserting a patent in litigation, some high-tech companies have discovered that the defendant can use one of the plaintiff’s later issued but earlier expiring patents to knock out a patent that was issued earlier but expires later. Like drugmakers, some tech companies may come to regret relying heavily on continuations in their patent prosecution, using a “more is more” strategy to grow large patent families. Ex parte reexamination has emerged as the proceeding of choice for tech patent challengers with at least a dozen patents invalidated by the USPTO’s Central Reexamination Unit for double patenting since Gilead.
Speakers:
Barry Bretschneider , BakerHostetler
Jeffrey Hohenshell , Medtronic
Lissi Mojica, Dentons US LLP
