Brandon Theiss Leads High School Students in Exploring Patent Validity at The Governor’s School of New Jersey
For the fourth consecutive summer, Brandon Theiss, a Volpe Koenig shareholder, has participated in teaching high school students about the intersection of technology and patent law at The Governor’s School of New Jersey in Engineering & Technology, hosted by Rutgers University’s School of Engineering. Students exiting their junior year must be nominated by their respective high schools to apply for the Governor’s School program with only the top 80 students selected to participate in team-based courses and research projects.
The program initiates with a week of remote instruction, followed by three weeks of on campus learning at Rutgers. During this period, students engage in classes from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily, gaining a significant understanding of advanced technology topics. The students are then divided into groups of three to five to collaborate on a research project related to an assigned topic. Like previous years, Theiss’s group was responsible for disputing the validity of a granted patent. This year’s project centered on a patent granted to Elizabeth Holmes--US9131884B2 - Medical device for analyte monitoring and drug delivery - Google Patents,
The primary objective of Theiss’s project is to provide the students with enough understanding of patent law within the three-week timeframe to enable them to critically assess a granted patent. Students were tasked with identifying prior art that could invalidate the patent and composing a research paper that demonstrates why the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) errored in issuing the patent.
Before submission to The Governors School, the research paper underwent a review and critique by patent attorneys, arranged by Theiss. Judging the students’ paper were Volpe Koenig’s Dawn Kerner, Dan Golub, Patrick Griffin and Jonathan Dunsay, Intellectual Venture’s Russ Rigby, and Key Patent Innovation’s Anthony Kavanagh.
Theiss committed to filing a reexamination request if the students’ analysis convinces a majority of reviewers of the patent’s invalidity. This year is particularly notable as it marks the first instance where this commitment will be fulfilled. “This was the first year that the students paper convinced all of the volunteer paper reviewers that the prior art the students uncovered constituted a substantial new question of patentability” says Theiss.
