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Ostrolenk Faber is a premier intellectual property boutique law firm. Since 1929, we have specialized in domestic and international patent, trademark and copyright law matters. We handle all aspects of IP law from counseling clients to prosecuting their applications to litigating their disputes. Our client base spans from Fortune 500 companies to privately owned businesses to individual inventors. They operate in fields as diverse as consumer electronics, luxury goods, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, and industrial products. With over 75 years of history, we have participated in the development of intellectual property law and gained the experience necessary to best serve our clients now and in the future. Read More
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OSTROLENK FABER partners Robert Faber and Douglas Miro are faculty members at the upcoming program:
Fundamentals of Patent Prosecution 2008: A Boot Camp for Claim Drafting & Amendment Writing.
This three-day program is directed to patent attorneys, litigation attorneys and patent agents with little patent experience. It will focus on teaching the basics of claim drafting, patent application preparation and prosecution, as well as a review of recent developments in the law.
The program will take place on Jun. 18 - 20, 2008 at the PLI New York Center-New York, NY and is accredited for transitional CLE credit.
For registration information, click here.
As Profiled in the The Patent Lawyer
OSTROLENK FABER partners Robert Faber and Peter Sloane secured a dismissal from a California district court based on the "first-to-file" rule in favor of our client Intersearch Group, Inc.’s ("Intersearch") first-filed action in New York district court. In a decision issued March 18, 2008, Judge Armstrong of the Central District of California agreed with Ostrolenk’s arguments that the duplicative case before her court should be dismissed in favor of the case concurrently pending in the Southern District of New York. Read More
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DISTRICT COURT RULES THAT THE PATENT OFFICE OVERSTEPPED ITS BOUNDS BY TRYING TO IMPLEMENT CONTROVERSIAL, SWEEPING RULE CHANGES
In an order presaged by its October 31, 2007 decision granting Preliminary Injunction against the US Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"), today (April 1, 2008) the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Cacheris, J.), sitting in Alexandria merely steps from the USPTO, granted Summary Judgment in favor of Plaintiffs Tafas and GlaxoSmithKline ("GSK") in their parallel suits seeking to block the USPTO from implementing controversial, sweeping rules changes that would have drastically limited the number of related applications and the number of claims within those applications that an applicant may present.
The Court confirmed that the USPTO overstepped its bounds because it has only procedural rulemaking authority, not substantive. The Court examined the practical effect of: (1) the 2+1 rule, which would limit applicants to two continuations and one Request for Continued Examination ("RCE") per application family; and (2) the 5/25 rule, which limits the claim count to 5 independent claims and 25 total claims in any single application, or in a broadly defined set of similar applications.
The Court found that the 2+1 rule was substantive and altered the existing expectations that patent applicants have relied upon for decades pursuant to statutory authority. The 5/25 rule was also found to be substantive, in part because it sought to shift the burden of examination onto the applicant for applications with claims exceeding the 5/25 limit.
The full decision can be found here. We expect the USPTO to appeal the decision. For more information, contact dmiro@ostrolenk.com
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