On Sale and Public Use Bars to Patentability: Minimizing the Risk of Patent Ineligibility or Invalidation

Mr. Irving has more than 47 years of experience in the field of IP law. His practice includes due diligence, patent prosecution, reissue and reexamination, patent interferences, and counseling, including prelitigation, Orange Book listings of patents covering FDA-approved drugs, and infringement and validity analysis in the chemical fields, as well as litigation. Mr. Irving has served as lead counsel in many patent interferences.

Ms. McCurdy has more than 25 years of experience creating, enforcing, and defending patent rights, with a particular focus on patent litigation, patent counseling, and contested patent proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). She has been lead trial counsel in patent cases in the U.S. district courts, appeals before the Federal Circuit, Section 337 investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission, and contested proceedings at the USPTO.

Ms. Murphy focuses on developing patent filing and prosecution strategies tailored to clients’ worldwide business goals. She works with a wide range of clients, including small biotech startup companies, research foundations, and large publicly traded biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Ms. Murphy prepares new patent applications, prosecutes U.S. and foreign applications, and represents appellants in ex parte appeals before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). She has also led clients through numerous reissue applications, inter partes and ex parte reexamination applications, and supplemental examination proceedings. Ms. Murphy’s extensive client counseling practice includes providing patentability, freedom-to-operate, infringement, and validity opinions. In addition, she represents petitioners and patent owners in inter partes review (IPR) and post grant review (PGR) proceedings before the PTAB. She has substantial experience in a wide variety of life sciences technologies, including antibodies and antibody drug conjugates; antiretrovirals and anticancer agents; biologics; blood clotting factors; cell signaling and signal transduction; diagnostic markers and detection assays; drug formulations; gene delivery systems, including AAV; gene editing technologies, including CRISPR; immunooncology; lipid nanoparticles; microbiome analysis and probiotics; nucleic acid modifications; peptide synthesis and protein purification; single-cell and single-molecule analysis; small molecule drugs; and vaccines.