10/02/2017
Klarquist Sparkman is pleased to announce that attorney Alexa Johnson and patent agent Jie Lian, Ph.D., have joined the firm. Both professionals started their careers at Klarquist as summer associates.
Ms. Johnson’s practice includes all areas of intellectual property law, with a focus on the preparation and prosecution of U.S. and foreign patent applications. Her areas of expertise include biotechnology, medical devices, and chemical and mechanical engineering. Prior to joining Klarquist, Ms. Johnson was a patent department extern at NASA’s Glenn Research Center and a process engineering intern at Arclin and E. & J. Gallo Winery. She completed her B.S. in Bioengineering at Oregon State University, and recently earned her J.D., magna cum laude, from Case Western Reserve University.
Dr. Lian’s practice focuses on the preparation and prosecution of U.S., international, and foreign patent applications, and performing patentability and prior art searches. His expertise is in medical devices, mobile health, signal/image processing, and wearable technology, and he specializes in signal processing, statistical analysis, physiological modeling, and algorithm development for embedded systems. He has published three book chapters and more than seventy peer-reviewed research articles, and has served as an expert reviewer for more than a dozen scientific journals. Dr. Lian is the recipient of more than forty issued or pending U.S. patents and dozens of European patents. He earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as an M.B.A. in Healthcare Management from a joint program between Oregon Health & Science University and Portland State University. He received his M.S. and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Zhejiang University in China, and is currently enrolled at Lewis & Clark Law School.
Klarquist Sparkman has been ranked among the Top Firms for Handling Mayo/Myriad Rejections by Juristat, an intellectual property consulting firm. Since the Supreme Court decisions of Mayo, Myriad, and Alice, the percentage of § 101 rejections made in biotech, pharma, and other life sciences applications have been steadily rising. According to Juristat, the percentage of these patent applications that encounter § 101 rejections have increased from 4.9% in 2012 to 15.7% today, with about 37% of these rejections occurring in Technology Center 1600, which handles the bulk of the applications in these technologies.
Compared to other firms, Klarquist has done remarkably well overcoming Mayo/Myriad rejections according to Juristat’s findings. Klarquist was the only firm based in the Pacific Northwest to be ranked among the top 10 firms. To be eligible for inclusion, each firm must have had a minimum of 50 disposed applications with at least one § 101 rejection that cited either Mayo or Myriad. Click here to view the full Juristat report.
Klarquist Sparkman is pleased to announce that attorney Liliana Di Nola-Baron, Ph.D., has joined the firm.
Dr. Di Nola-Baron’s practice focuses on the preparation and prosecution of U.S., international, and foreign patent applications. She also prepares patentability, invalidity, infringement, and freedom-to-operate opinions. Dr. Di Nola-Baron has expertise in biotechnology, including pharmaceuticals, small molecule drugs, polymer applications, cosmetics, medical treatments and devices, immunology, biochemistry, gene therapy, food science, and agriculture. Prior to joining Klarquist, Dr. Di Nola-Baron was employed as a patent attorney and patent agent at firms in the United States and Israel. She was also employed as patent examiner at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. As a research scientist, Dr. Di Nola-Baron completed post-doctoral research in molecular biology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and in immunology at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. She also completed a stage as biochemist at the Université P. et M. Curie in Paris, France.
Dr. Di Nola-Baron received her J.D. from George Washington University, and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, M.Sc. with Distinction in Botany, and B.Sc., cum laude, in Agriculture, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel.
Klarquist is proud to have six attorneys named to the 2018 Best Lawyers in America® list: Lisa M. Caldwell in the area of Trademark Law; James E. Geringer in the areas of IP Litigation, Patent Litigation, and Trademark Law; Ramon A. Klitzke II in the areas of Patent Law and Trademark Law; William D. Noonan, M.D. in the area of Patent Law; Stacey C. Slater in the area of Patent Law; and John D. Vandenberg in the areas of IP Litigation and Patent Litigation.
Best Lawyers® compiles its lists of attorneys by conducting peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. The Best Lawyers in America® can be found online at www.bestlawyers.com.
Last week, Klarquist hosted 11 examiners from the USPTO’s Art Unit 1600 as they visited innovative companies in the Portland area. The examiners were visiting Portland as part of their Site Experience Education (SEE) program, in which they learned about the various chemical and biotech technologies used by Portland-area companies. The examiners visited AgonOx, Agrinos, Intel, NIKE, OHSU, Phylos Bioscience, the Portland Business Accelerator, Portland State University, Providence Cancer Center, and Ubivac. Klarquist also hosted a happy hour reception for the examiners that was attended by members of the biotech and chemical community from all over Oregon. The event gave the examiners the opportunity to meet with companies to better understand some of the issues of their industries. The USPTO examiners’ SEE trip to Portland was coordinated by Susan Alpert Siegel. The examiners’ visit only helped reinforce what we already knew- that Portland is an amazing place to live, and we are fortunate to be a part of such strong scientific and business community.
Klarquist attorneys Ramon A. Klitzke II, Gregory L. Maurer, and John D. Vandenberg were recently recognized as IP Stars by Managing Intellectual Property (MIP) magazine. The “IP Stars USA” list highlights the country’s leading intellectual property attorneys who have been highly recommended by their clients. Additionally, Klarquist was one of only three Oregon firms ranked as “highly recommended” by the publication. MIP‘s independent research is based on a weighted system of peer and client feedback, combined with a review of information obtained from surveys conducted with law firms and their clients in more than 80 jurisdictions around the world. Click here to see what MIP and its sources had to say about us.
Operation Technology, Inc. (ETAP) won partial summary judgment invalidating all 138 asserted patent claims in four patents, in a lawsuit filed by Power Analytics Corp. The patents are in the field of modeling electrical systems. ETAP, founded in 1986 by Dr. Farrokh Shokooh, is a technology leader in modeling, design, analysis, optimization, monitoring, control, and automation software for electrical power systems.
Hon. John A. Kronstadt, U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, ruled that all asserted claims are invalid under the abstractness exclusion to patent eligibility under section 101 of the Patent Act. The claims are invalid in part because none exceeded “the abstract idea of evaluating and reacting to prediction deviations,” the Court ruled.
Klarquist attorneys Salumeh R. Loesch, Garth A. Winn, Kristin L. Cleveland, Klaus H. Hamm, Sarah E. Jelsema, and John D. Vandenberg represent ETAP in this action. Also representing ETAP are David W. Kesselman and Trevor V. Stockinger of Kesselman Brantly Stockinger LLP. Joining the motion was co-defendant Schneider Electric USA, Inc., represented by attorneys from Jenner & Block LLP.
Klarquist is proud to have Ramon A. Klitzke II, Jeffrey S. Love, and John D. Vandenberg named to the 2017 Oregon Super Lawyers® list. No more than five percent of the lawyers in Oregon are selected by Super Lawyers. Additionally, Mark W. Wilson was selected for inclusion in the 2017 Oregon Rising Stars℠ list, which recognizes no more than 2.5 percent of Oregon attorneys.
The annual survey is published by Thomson Reuters, and surveys of attorneys throughout the country as well as in depth research and peer reviews are used to complete the selection process. Super Lawyers can be found online at www.superlawyers.com.
Klarquist scored a key victory for client Nautilus, Inc., fending off four IPR petitions filed by rival exercise equipment company Icon Fitness. The denied petitions attempted to challenge four Nautilus patents relating to elliptical machines. Nautilus is asserting those patents against Icon in district court litigation, alleging infringement by the NordicTrack FreeStride Trainers. Klarquist also represents Nautilus in that litigation, which commenced in May 2016 in the Western District of Washington. The four petition denials are particularly significant given that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board grants more than 70% of such petitions. Klarquist attorneys Andrew M. Mason, John D. Vandenberg, and Garth A. Winn represented Nautilus at the PTAB.