Patent Attorney Litigators – a personal perspective

Nicholas Wallin, a partner at Withers & Rogers LLP and a Patent Attorney Litigator, gives an overview of the role

In many countries, a title such as Patent Attorney Litigator would make no sense -normally the title patent attorney is enough. In the US, for example, a patent attorney is as equally qualified to conduct patent prosecution before the USPTO as patent litigation in front of the appropriate district court. (Whether an individual does both, however, is another matter that I will come back to.) Likewise in Germany, Japan, or Korea - patent attorneys in those countries often conduct court proceedings relating to patent validity, with matters relating to infringement being restricted to general lawyers. In the UK, however, the situation is different, and in this article I will introduce an additional qualification that some UK patent attorneys hold, known as a Litigator’s Certificate.