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Kristin Doyle

Partner

Kristin Doyle is a partner at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP. Ms. Doyle serves as the co-team leader of the firm’s Mechanical & Medical Device Patent Team. She also serves on the firm’s Post-Grant Proceedings Team and has managed a number of inter partes review proceedings.

For close to twenty years, Ms. Doyle has been responsible for counseling her clients in all aspects of patent law, including patent procurement, patent litigation, licensing, diligence related to IP transactions, and patent monetization.

Ms. Doyle oversees the strategic development of meaningful patent portfolios for clients in a variety of technical industries, including the lighting, medical device, animal processing, floorcovering, heat transfer tubing, industrial process and textile industries. She has developed both industry- and technology-specific experience that enable her to counsel her clients in how to maximize their efforts to develop and strategically leverage their intellectual property.

Ms. Doyle is a trusted advisor to clients who want to ensure that their activities do not infringe upon the patent rights of others, all the while driving litigation against competitors who infringe on her clients’ patent rights. She helps clients navigate the relevant technology landscape so as to avoid infringement while developing commercially viable products suitable for patent protection themselves. Ms. Doyle enjoys engaging in the high level patent strategy involved in litigating patent cases. While she has experience with all aspects of patent litigation, she particularly enjoys working with experts, claim construction and summary judgment briefing, and appellate practice.

Ms. Doyle was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® in 2022 and the four years immediately preceding for Patent Law. She was recommended by Legal 500 US in 2019 for Patent Prosecution.

Recent Articles by Kristin Doyle

An Argument for Mandatory Production of Limited Secondary Consideration Evidence by Petitioners in Inter Partes Reviews

The Federal Circuit has repeatedly confirmed that secondary consideration evidence is an integral part of an obviousness analysis (indeed, it “may be the most pertinent, probative, and revealing evidence available to the decision maker in reaching a conclusion on the obviousness/nonobviousness issue”) and thus has mandated consideration of such evidence in assessing obviousness (Mintz v. Dietz & Watson, Inc.). The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) similarly requires consideration of secondary consideration evidence (MPEP 2145 (9th ed. Rev. 10.2019, June. 2020). This requirement makes sense. Among the many benefits to a patent challenger, IPRs have also effectively provided petitioners (i.e., patent challengers) with a shield against disclosure of evidence that might directly undermine their obviousness arguments – evidence that they typically would have been forced to disclose in district court litigation.