Posts Tagged: "Focarino"

Patent Reform – What’s Driving the Patent Legislative Agenda?

Phil Johnson on IPR: “I think with hindsight we might say they made the mistake of relying on the Patent Office to promulgate regulations for fair proceedings for both patent owners and to challengers. And they expected, for example, that the same claim instruction standards would be used in IPRs are as used in the courts. They expected that when the law said that a patent owner could file a reply in the institution phase that it wouldn’t be told oh, no, you can’t include new evidence for that reply. They expected that other burdensome presumptions, including things like consideration of objective indicia of nonobvious would be treated the way it is in the courts, and so on. So in the end they expected that the outcome in IPRs would be approximately the same as in the courts and what we have seen is that that absolutely is not the case and, therefore, it’s not that — necessarily that the law was wrong, it’s that I don’t think pharma decisions and bio decisions have been promulgated properly.”

Gene Quinn

November 18, 2015

Former Commissioner for Patents Peggy Focarino Joins Oblon

Peggy Focarino, the Former Commissioner for Patents for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), has joined Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, LLP as Senior Patent Advisor.

Gene Quinn

September 9, 2015

The End of an Era – Commissioner for Patents Peggy Focarino Retires

Since she first joined the USPTO as the newest examiner in 1977, Focarino has worked tirelessly in a variety of different roles, always as a public servant. Not only has she worked in the public sector doing whatever job has been asked of her on behalf of the patent system, but she has also worked to be accepted as an employee of the USPTO, and not merely a female employee of the USPTO. Today it almost sounds sexist to even refer to someone as “a female employee,” but that wasn’t always the case. There is no doubt that Focarino has been a trailblazer. As the first woman to become Acting Commissioner for Patents, the first woman to become Commissioner for Patents, and a member of the first all female leadership team in the history of the USPTO, Focarino has seen the agency change dramatically over the past four decades.

Gene Quinn

June 30, 2015

Federal Circuit Review – Issue 3 – 01-09-2014

In this issue of the Federal Circuit Review: (1) Denial of Attorneys’ Fees Vacated for Consideration of Additional Facts Under “Exceptional Cases” Statute; (2) BPAI’s Obviousness Determination Unsupported by Substantial Evidence; and (3) Extraterritorial Injunction Under State Unfair Competition Law Vacated After Court Finds Appellate Jurisdiction to Hear Case.

Robert Schaffer & Joseph Robinson

January 9, 2014