The process of getting your corporation’s diversity in innovation metrics sounds simple until you actually try to do it. This panel will walk the audience through the practical steps of how to generate data indicating the extent of gender diversity amongst an entity's inventor community.

The duty of disclosure before the U.S. Patent Office and the associated defense of inequitable conduct in the courts are ones for which patent practitioners must constantly stay knowledgeable. While some things remain constant with the duty and defense, nuances continuously evolve. This panel brings a perspective from both the litigators’ and prosecutors’ points of view, with particular focus on the state of the law after GS Cleantech, the nuanced differences between the scope of the duty of disclosure between different Patent Office forums, and best practices and tips from the patent prosecutor’s perspective.

This webinar, which is part of our European Practice Webinar Series, will address whether, following the Decision G 1/19 on Computer-implemented simulations, something has changed with respect to the assessment of patentability and inventiveness in Europe. In this long-awaited decision, the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBOA) of the European Patent Office concluded that computer-implemented simulations should be treated under the long-standing COMVIK approach for Computer-Implemented Inventions (CII) and can be technical.

The webinar will explore this issue from a legal and policy perspective, and discuss the voluntary IP licensing initiatives taken by companies in the pharmaceutical, medical device and IT industries in meeting the challenges of the current pandemic.​

There are many parallels between proceedings before the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board and opposition proceedings before the European Patent Office. However, stakeholders need to understand the differences between the two types of proceedings in order to achieve successful outcomes in both jurisdictions. In this webinar, Maeve O’Flynn (Finnegan) will talk with in-house counsels Rob Furr and Chris Comiskey to compare and contrast the proceedings. They will address potential synergies and conflicts when proceedings are pending or anticipated in both jurisdictions.

This webinar is the first in a series of webinars regarding the “Movement for Requesting Action to Remedy the Gender Gap in the Patent Bar”. To kick off the series, this experienced panel of patent practitioners will examine the gender gap in the patent bar and its correlation to the STEM degree requirement; discuss the qualifications for prosecuting design patents; review the letter from Senators Hirono, Coons, and Tillis to the USPTO and the USPTO’s response, and explore ways to increase diversity among patent agents.

Software has become increasingly intertwined with medical devices, serving to monitor, control, evaluate, extrapolate, etc. In some instances, software now forms a medical device itself to not only guide a clinician in diagnosis and/or treatment but to form its own diagnosis and/or issue its own treatment. This webinar will review recent case law relating to software-related medical patents and provide strategy tips for preparing and prosecuting patent applications involving such technologies.

Patent Offices, applicants and other stakeholders around the world are all interested in increasing the efficiency of patent examination, and improving the quality of granted patents. Work sharing programs, such as the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) and the Parallel Patent Grant (PPG) programs, and other fast-track options allowing applicants to obtain expedited examination for certain applications, are critical to achieve such goals. In this sense, the exchange of search results between Patent Offices, for example, or allowing an applicant who receives a positive ruling from a certain Patent Office, to request accelerated prosecution of corresponding claims in another Patent Office, avoids unnecessary workload and duplication of effort, reduces patent backlogs, and also avoids inconsistencies in patentability decisions amongst different Patent Offices.

Since the Supreme Court abrogated the doctrine of “licensee estoppel,” in Lear v. Adkins in 1969, commentators have suggested that “assignor estoppel” should be abrogated for the same reasons. In other words, the public policy that encourages invalidity challenges to eliminate “bad” patents and allow competition free from bad patent monopolies should also kill assignor estoppel. Indeed, after Lear some courts refused to apply assignor estoppel, but the Federal Circuit first found assignor estoppel viable in 1982 and has since continued to apply the doctrine to bar assignors and those in privity with assignors from raising invalidity challenges in district court actions.

Allyship is the practice of promoting and advancing social justice, diversity, and inclusion through supporting members of an oppressed or marginalized group. The third and final part in our three-part allyship series will discuss the learnings from the first two sessions, bringing together different perspectives to provide practical tips for improving allyship personally, organizationally, and systemically.

This webinar will provide an overview of significant IP policy concerns across different countries and regions based on IPO’s comments made during the U.S. Trade Representative’s Special 301 review. The panelists will go around the world in one hour, noting issues that IP practitioners need to be aware of, and pointing out global trends in IP law and policy.

Allyship is the practice of promoting and advancing social justice, diversity, and inclusion through supporting members of an oppressed or marginalized group. In this webinar, the second in a series of three, speakers will focus on why it is imperative that the majority of the lawyer population – cisgender white males – need to be allies to their diverse colleagues and employees.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Intellectual Property (IP) Attaché Program works to improve IP systems and to help U.S. stakeholders internationally. IP attachés directly assist U.S. businesses and advocate to improve IP policies, laws, and regulations abroad.

This webinar is intended to provide an overview of the Madrid System of International Registration of Trade Marks. Trade Mark owners face budget and time limitations when registering and maintaining a Trade Mark portfolio. Speakers will provide an introduction to the international route for registration of Trade Marks, together with various tips and best practices in the making use of the Madrid System.

2020 was a year for the record books at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), which saw landmark decisions at the Federal Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court, revisions to practice and procedures, as well as continued discussion on the constitutionality of PTAB judges. Seasoned practitioners and corporate counsel will discuss 2020’s major developments and how they may impact patent litigation practice going forward before the PTAB and beyond.