In This Issue:

Conducting Efficient Patent Litigation Discovery -

The costs associated with discovery, and particularly electronic document discovery, in patent litigation can be effectively controlled with upfront planning, preparation, and coordination between in-house and outside counsel. Presented in this two-part article are some practical considerations for conducting efficient document collection and review. In this first part, early collection activities and agreements with opposing counsel are discussed...

The TianRui Group Company Ltd. v. U.S. International Trade Commission: A Powerful New Weapon for Combating Trade Secret Misappropriation Abroad -

What if trade secret misappropriation occurs abroad and the misappropriated trade secret is used to manufacture products that are then imported into the United States to compete with the trade secret owner’s products? Under the TianRui decision, a U.S. company doing business abroad may have recourse in the International Trade Commission (“ITC”) under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (“section 337”) to exclude the importation of products that embody a misappropriated trade secret, even when the trade secret theft occurred entirely outside of the United States and the U.S. company is not using its trade secret in its products...

Post-Grant Review: A Double-Edged Sword -

The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), signed into law in 2011, promises the most radical changes to U.S. patent law in over 50 years. The act eliminates the first-to-invent system of granting patents in favor of a first-to-file system, gives the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) the authority to set its own fees, and authorizes—indeed mandates—the establishment of USPTO satellite offices outside of the Washington, D.C. area. Another watershed change is the creation of a “post-grant review” (or “PGR”) procedure by which any member of the public can challenge the validity of an issued patent, on a variety of grounds, before a USPTO tribunal...