SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - One of the nation’s leading continuing education providers is offering a webinar to better educate attorneys on how to handle patent infringement letters.
Strafford, which hosts nearly 500 live, interactive webinars or teleconferences a year, will host “Patent Infringement Letters: Considerations and Best Practices for Senders and Recipients -- Patent Holder Strategies for Leveraging Letters and Avoiding DJ Actions; Defense and Response Strategies for Alleged Infringers” from 1 to 2:30 p.m. EST June 18.
Kirupa Pushparaj, head IP counsel for San Francisco-based Square Inc., and Bobbie Wilson, partner at the San Francisco office of law firm Perkins Coie, will provide guidance for patent counsel on the use of such demand letters -- the crux of the ongoing patent reform debate.
The panel will discuss considerations and strategies for both the sender and recipient, in addition to offering best practices for determining whether and when to send a letter, as well as responding to a letter.
As noted in the webinar’s description, patent owners must carefully craft letters to minimize the likelihood of facing a declaratory judgment, or DJ, action. At the same time, recipients must figure out the proper course of action to take.
As part of the webinar, Pushparaj and Wilson will discuss:
- Considerations for the patent owner -- where and when to file;
- Strategies for the patent owner -- how to draft a letter to avoid a DJ action, and the timing;
- Considerations for the recipient of such a letter -- find out if the sender is a competitor, figure out if you are infringing, and determine whether it will cause an interruption to your business or potential litigation;
- Strategies for the recipient, including defenses and responses; and
- Best practices in sending and responding to a letter.
The idea of best practices, in particular, has caught the attention of some companies in recent months.
Pushparaj focuses on patent and trademark portfolio development aspects, patent litigation, copyright, domain and open source issues at Square, a financial services, merchant services aggregator and mobile payments company.
Before working at Square, he was patent counsel for Lab126, the digital products arm of Amazon.com, and practiced IP law at Perkins Coie. Before becoming a lawyer, he was a senior design engineer at Intel Corp., working on analog and mixed signal circuits and semiconductor process technology.
He also is an adjunct professor of law at the University of the Pacific, where he teaches patent claim drafting and prosecution practices.
Wilson focuses on patent, trade secrets, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and Section 230 litigation under the Communications Decency Act. She also serves as the lead trial counsel in IP and complex class action litigation cases.
She often speaks on cutting edge issues and authors articles -- the most recent concerning how to deal with threat letters in patent cases and dealing with social media and jurors as a trial lawyer.
The registration fee for the webinar is $297, or $362 for the webinar and Continuing Legal Education credit processing.
To learn more or sign up, click here.
From Legal Newsline: Reach Jessica Karmasek by email at patents@legalnewsline.com.