Barbara McCurdy has more than 25 years of experience creating, enforcing, and defending patent rights, with a particular focus on patent litigation, patent counseling, and contested patent proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). She has been lead trial counsel in patent cases in the U.S. district courts, appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Section 337 investigations at the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), and contested proceedings at the USPTO.
Barbara’s experience before the USPTO includes leading more than 20 contested proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). In addition to inter partes proceedings before the USPTO involving challenges to patentability and priority of invention, she also has been lead counsel in district court actions under 35 U.S.C. § 146 reviewing USPTO Board decisions and district court actions under 35 U.S.C. § 291 involving interfering patents. She has lectured extensively around the world on the strategic interplay between USPTO post-grant proceedings and litigation in district courts and the ITC.
Barbara has been recognized by Intellectual Asset Management as a leading patent litigator in the D.C. area, and nationally for post-grant procedures. Her cases have involved a wide range of technologies, including computers, software, semiconductors, medical devices, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals.
Barbara provides a range of patent counseling, including strategic patent prosecution, validity and infringement opinions, patent portfolio management, and litigation strategy. She develops strategies that meet the business goals of clients, including advising them on building patent portfolios in significant new technology areas, developing IP positions that take into account the IP landscape, advising on acquisitions or licensing of technology, and developing offensive and defensive litigation strategies. She has taught patent law to hundreds of law school students and USPTO contested proceedings practice to hundreds of patent attorneys.
Barbara served as chairman of Finnegan, following a three-year term as the firm’s managing partner.
