Administrative patent judge for the USPTO’s Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, Nancy Linck, is to return to private practice with Washington DC firm Rothwell Figg Ernst & Manbeck as of counsel, effective February 4.
Linck was appointed the first female solicitor of the USPTO in August 1994. She went on to serve for seven years in-house at Guilford Pharmaceuticals in Baltimore, Maryland and as deputy general counsel of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) for six months before returning to the USPTO in 2006.
She is most noted for her authorship of the precedential opinion, Ex parte Kubin, which guides examiners dealing with biotechnology applications on how to apply section 103 of the US Code, which pertains to the issue of non-obviousness, consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in KSR v Teleflex. Her retirement is effective January 31.
