Back to the Future: Patent Reexamination as a PTAB Alternative

Mr. Laurence has a winning record representing patent owners and petitioners in mission-critical IPR and PGR proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). He is also experienced with other post-grant proceedings having handled many high-profile reexaminations and reissues, which enables him to develop comprehensive post-grant strategies. He leverages his post-grant experience in prosecution matters to obtain patents for his clients that will survive challenges. Mr. Laurence has taught a course as an adjunct professor at the George Washington University Law School on USPTO post-grant proceedings since 2015. He served as an instructor for Patent Resources Group (PRG) in courses on post-grant proceedings during 2009–2019. He is a co-author of a two-volume treatise titled Post-Grant Patent Practice, which was provided in conjunction with the PRG courses and was updated at least annually for over a decade. He has co-authored about 50 articles on post-grant patent topics. He served as Vice Chair of the Intellectual Property Owners Association’s U.S. Post-Grant Patent Office Practice committee during 2012–2015. He served as a founding Board Director for the PTAB Bar Association during 2016–2017.  

Mr. McKeown focuses his practice on post-grant patent counseling and litigation matters at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and related appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC). He handles all aspects of post-issuance patent proceedings, with a particular focus on administrative trials before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), such as IPR and post-grant review PGR. He also provides advice on USPTO post-grant proceedings concurrent with complex International Trade Commission and district court litigations. Mr. McKeown is one of the most active PTAB trial attorneys in the U.S., having handled more than 500 PTAB matters since 2012, including those in which more than $500 million was at stake. He currently serves as lead post-grant counsel to some of the world’s best-known innovators and has handled some of the most noteworthy PTAB trials to date, including the only precedential decision on live testimony. Mr. McKeown is a Professorial Lecturer in Law at The George Washington University Law School and a Founding Director of the PTAB Bar Association. He lectures and writes extensively on PTAB proceedings and maintains the award-winning blog, PatentsPostGrant.com, which examines developments in patent litigation, including issues related to USPTO post issuance proceedings.