Double Trouble: Practical Advice for Avoiding the Traps of Double Patenting and Divisionals

“Two heads are better than one”, so the saying goes. The same is not necessarily true for patents. According to case law in both the United States and Europe, a patentee can invalidate one of its own patents merely by filing a second patent application for the same invention.

For example, in its recent decision in Gilead Sciences, Inc. v. Natco Pharma Ltd., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held that Gilead’s first-issued, but later-expiring patent was invalidated by its later-issued, but first-expiring patent under the doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting. Meanwhile, the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office have held that a patent can be anticipated by its own divisional application.

Please join us as we discuss this counter-intuitive phenomenon and provide practical advice on how to avoid its effects. Topics will include:

• The doctrine of double patenting in the United States and Europe
• Double patenting pitfalls in the United States
• Filing divisional applications safely in Europe
• Preventing anticipation by priority applications in Europe

Moderator: 
Leythem A. Wall

Speakers: 
Philip L. Cupitt, Ph.D. 
Anthony C. Tridico, Ph.D.

Date:
Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Time:

15:00 - 16:00 BST
16:00 - 17:00 CEST
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. EDT