The
Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) will offer a one-hour webinar on
"Written
Description of Biotech Inventions: Insight from the USPTO" on October
10, 2013 beginning at 2:00 pm (ET).  Daniel
Kolker, Supervisory Patent Examiner for Art Unit 1644 at the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office, will discuss how the agency's Written Description Training
Materials, last revised in 2008, mesh with recent court decisions.  The panel, which also includes David Halstead
of Ropes & Gray LLP and Deborah
Martin of Pfizer, Inc., will consider
how innovators can both protect their inventions and be sure of their freedom
to operate, as well as discuss claims on an antibody which "binds to an
antigen at residues X, Y, and Z of the antigen," and whether these claims are
patentable even though they provide no structural information about the claimed
antibodies.  The panel will also address
the type of disclosure needed to support patentability and broad scope, and how
recent case law should inform innovators' filing strategies throughout drug
discovery and development.

The
registration fee for the webinar is $120 (government and academic rates are
available upon request).  Those
interested in registering for the webinar can do so here.