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Ropes & Gray Attorney Authors Article on Intricacies of Double Patenting Law
August 2010
Intellectual property group partner David Halstead examines obviousness-type double patenting (“OTDP”) in a recent article for Bloomberg Law Reports. In his article, “Balancing Inequities: Overcoming Double Patenting in Today’s World”, Halstead points out that OTDP was created to protect against the unjust extension of patent term, and against subjecting an alleged infringer to multiple lawsuits by different parties on patents arising out of the same activities.
When the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (“GATT”) took effect, the terms of protection for patents granted on applications filed since June 8, 1995 were changed. This has greatly complicated the application of OTDP law.
Halstead writes, “Over recent years, OTDP has switched from a sensible approach to resolving equitable concerns into an arcane and rigid set of rules ill-adapted to a modern post-GATT world in which employees are increasingly mobile and companies routinely engage in complex collaborations. Despite legislative interventions, such as the Cooperative Research and Technology Enhancement Act, that help to inject the law with a dose of the flexibility modern business requires, OTDP still creates traps for the unwary and pitfalls for the merely unlucky.”
To read the full article, please click here.
Ropes & Gray's intellectual property group provides a full range of IP rights and management services from licensing and transactions to rights protection and full-scale litigation. With a team of more than 200 lawyers, 40 patent agents and technical advisors and 60 paralegals, Ropes & Gray advises industry innovators on their most challenging issues, anywhere in the world.
In June, the firm won Chambers USA’s 2010 "Award for Excellence" as the leading practice in the United States for intellectual property, and The International Who's Who of Patent Lawyers has named five Ropes & Gray partners to its distinguished list for 2010. Two other surveys by Managing IP and Asia IP recently ranked Ropes & Gray’s IP practices among the best in the world.
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