Two opposing interests are often pitted against one another in the patent world.
On the one hand there are the researchers who are keen to publish the results of their activities in scientific literature as soon as possible, and the marketing people who are keen to advertise new products well in advance of placing them on the market.
While on the other hand, there are the in-house and outside patent counsel who want sufficient time to assess whether enough data has been generated or experiments done to support a patent filing, and if so, additional time to draft and file a patent application before those publication and marketing activities take place.
The in-house and outside patent counsel often need to plead with the researchers and marketing people to defer their publication and advertising activities at least until a patent application has been filed.
Is there a way to properly balance those two interests? Many companies, universities and research institutes have internal procedures for achieving this balance but frequently face problems in implementing those procedures. How could the various departments cooperate to achieve this goal? What is or could be the role of outside counsel in such a scenario?
Moderator
Dr. Roberto Pistolesi
Managing Partner, Dragotti & Associati (IT)
FICPI President (2022-2025)
Speakers
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Michael J. Kline
Senior Corporate Counsel, Director of Intellectual Property, Dunlop Sports America (US) -
Dan Warren
Partner, Eversheds (DE) -
Speaker 3 [to be confirmed]