Courses 2024 - 2025

LAW P 551 Patent Prosecution and Counseling Practicum

Patent Practicum: Building Valuable Patent Assets

Students should be familiar with the basics of patent prosecution – building a patent from the ground up. We will consider patent value from the top down, using real-life scenarios and active cases to examine critical issues relating to patent scope, validity, and enforceability. We will discuss specific examples of problems and means by which those problems could have been addressed or ameliorated during patent prosecution, including as to:

• Claim construction (scope and effect on enforcement and validity; section 112 issues)
• Validity (indefiniteness, enablement, written description, anticipation, obviousness)
• Enforceability (inequitable conduct, patent misuse)
• Real world concerns (licensing, cross-licensing, adversarial proceedings)

Students will have the opportunity, as need arises, to work on active cases through the Washington pro bono patent network.