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Bradley Olson

Partner

Barnes & Thornburg, LLP

Bradley J. Olson is a partner at Barnes & Thornburg in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office.  He has been involved in virtually all aspects of patent litigation, including the handling of discovery, motion and trial practice, retaining experts and consultants for trial, coordinating jury focus groups, and preparing witnesses for deposition and trial testimony. He has prepared and negotiated complex intellectual property rights transfer agreements, including patent litigation settlements, patent licenses and computer software and hardware agreements.

Brad represents clients in high-stakes IP disputes under Section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 before the International Trade Commission (ITC). He also has experience in virtually all aspects of patent and trademark litigation in U.S. District Courts, ITC Section 337 hearings and patent litigations in the U.S. and in several European countries.

Moreover, Brad advises clients on patentability, infringement and validity issues, including anti-counterfeiting enforcement and industrial design matters with an emphasis in the biomechanical technology and biomedical and medical device fields. He has also published numerous legal articles about intellectual property issues.

Appreciated by clients and colleagues alike for his ability to serve as a thoughtful adviser even under the most serious or contentious scenarios, Brad seeks to lead from a positon that is grounded in substance and strength. A hands-on advocate who is dedicated to identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the matter at hand, Brad focuses on understanding the bigger picture of what his client needs to succeed, with consideration to how the result will impact not only their bottom line, but also their reputation and market position.

While in law school, Brad served as an extern for The Honorable Senior Judge Shane Devine of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.

For more than 20 years, Mr. Olson has been involved in virtually all aspects of patent litigation, including the handling of discovery, motion, and trial practice, retaining experts and consultants for trial, coordinating jury focus groups, and preparing witnesses for deposition and trial testimony. He has prepared and negotiated complex intellectual property rights transfer agreements, including patent litigation settlements, patent licenses, and computer software and hardware agreements. Brad also has experience in virtually all aspects of patent and trademark litigation in U.S. District Courts, ITC Section 337 hearings, and patent litigations in the U.S. and in several European countries.

Mr. Olson was recognized as an “IP Star” by Managing Intellectual Property Magazine in 2013 and 2014. He has also published numerous articles about intellectual property issues.

After graduating from Central Connecticut State University with a B.A. in biology, he earned his M.S. in biology from the University of Connecticut. Mr. Olson earned his J.D. and Master of Intellectual Property Law degrees from the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Mr. Olson is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court, and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Recent Articles by Bradley Olson

Will the Supreme Court Keep Kicking the Can or Stop It by Addressing Arthrex?

On April 6, Arthrex, Inc. filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court on two discrete patent issues. Notably, one of the issues raised in Arthrex’s April 6 petition is likely to prove especially compelling to the Supreme Court, and may well tilt the balance for it being granted, as it provides an inroad to a constitutional Appointments Clause issue that is central to several other petitions by various parties on the same issue. Arthrex is widely anticipated to file another petition for certiorari on this issue stemming from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit’s recent denial of a rehearing en banc in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew wherein the main issue had been the Federal Circuit’s ruling that Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) judges were indeed unconstitutionally appointed under the America Invents Act (AIA), but that the Federal Circuit’s field expedient blue penciling of the underlying statutes corrected any constitutional flaws nunc pro tunc.

Practitioner Strategies for Living in a Post-Cuozzo World

It seems difficult to reconcile the Respondent’s principal argument that two standards should still apply: that is, that the PTAB should be permitted to continue applying its policy-derived broad BRI standard for construing patent claim scope in Congressionally mandated “adjudicative” IPR proceedings while still using the lower preponderance of the evidence standard provided under 35 U.S.C. § 316(e). The notion that the USPTO may “infer” such intent to also apply the BRI in the absence of any express guidance from Congress was weak, at best. Especially because having two such claim construction standards applied by Article III courts and the ITC on the one hand, and the USPTO’s unilateral application of an “examination” claim construction standard in an intended “adjudication” setting on the other hand, has already led to inequitable and presumably non-appealable results.