Daily Briefs

 LAD to conduct free outreach clinic in Southfield May 2

Legal Aid and Defender Association, Inc. (LAD) will conduct a free outreach clinic on civil legal services for income-eligible residents of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties, including the city of Detroit, from 9 a.m. to noon Friday, May 2 at Southfield Human Services, 26080 Berg Road, Southfield.

Attendees are asked to register before 10 a.m., as a LAD attorney will assist only those persons who have done so by that time.
For further information, contact Stacey Felder, paralegal at LAD’s Oakland County office in Pontiac, at (248) 253-1548, ext. 4005.
 

Practice group assists clients with expedited review at USPTO

In response to the sweeping changes to post-grant proceedings brought about by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), intellectual property law firm Brinks Gilson & Lione has established a post-grant patent practice group with experienced patent attorneys who are assisting clients with post-grant reviews.
 
 Brinks’ newest practice group, which numbers 46 attorneys, counsels clients on patent litigation strategies under the provisions of the Act. Brinks also oversees proceedings before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

The AIA, a federal statute that became effective in 2012, establishes new trial procedures and an accelerated timeline for review of the patentability of issued patents at the USPTO. These procedures include post-grant review (PGR), inter partes review (IPR), and a transitional program for reviewing so-called covered business method patents. Brinks attorneys assist with all these proceedings, as well as ex parte reexaminations, derivations and interferences, and supplemental examination.

Shareholders Kelly K. Burris and Marc V. Richards co-chair the new practice group. Burris, who has practiced law for more than 14 years, is also an aeronautical engineer, a pilot, and a U.S. patent holder in the field of fiber optics.
Richards, a chemical engineer by degree and a control systems engineer by training, as well as a widely respected authority on patent-related issues, has more than 20 years of legal experience and has published and presented frequently on the subject of patent law. He formerly chaired the firm’s Reexamination and Interference Practice Group, which is now folded into the new practice group.

Brinks recently launched a public web page specifically devoted to post-grant patent practice, to help companies understand the opportunities for challenging or strengthening a patent through a USPTO proceeding, at brinksgilson.com/practice_areas/post-grant-patent-practice-group.

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