Overview
Overview
Rick Longton specializes in pharmaceutical, biochemical, and chemical matters. Rick's counseling experience has focused on matters involving small molecule pharmaceuticals, stable liquid pharmaceutical protein formulations, chemicals, chemical processes, medical diagnostics, and biotechnology. He counsels clients on a variety of intellectual property matters, including patent infringement, validity, enforceability, and freedom-to-operate. Rick has 20 years of experience prosecuting chemical, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and biotechnology patent applications in the USPTO, and managing prosecution of corresponding patent applications worldwide.
Representative Matters
Representative Matters
- Represented patent owner in an IPR proceeding challenging the validity of a patent covering the formulation of a biologic. We won.
- Represented petitioner in an IPR proceeding challenging the validity of a patent covering a biologic. We won.
- Represented patent owner in an IPR proceeding brought by a group of generic companies. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board rejected the generics’ petition in its entirety, finding that the petitioners failed to establish a “reasonable likelihood” of showing unpatentability of any claim of the patent.
- Represented major pharmaceutical company in multi-defendant Hatch-Waxman litigation relating to a multi-billion dollar drug.
- Represented major pharmaceutical company in Hatch-Waxman litigation related to an over-the-counter drug.
- Represented major agrochemical company in several patent infringement litigations related to agrochemical products and genetically modified plants.
- Represented major pharmaceutical company in a patent infringement litigation relating to recombinant DNA methods.
- Represented major agrochemical company in prelitigation investigations, patent reexamination, portfolio assessment and freedom-to-operate opinions.
- Represented major wood protection company in procuring patents related to wood treatment technology as well as commencing strategic annulment proceedings overseas and defending litigation-related inter partes reexamination in the U.S.
- Represented manufacturer of ecofriendly agrochemical products in procuring patents worldwide.
Pro Bono
Pro Bono
The Eli Rice Seeder In Action. Brooklyn Bridge to Cambodia
Rick assisted Brooklyn Bridge to Cambodia, a non-profit formed to provide subsistence farmers with better tools to improve their harvests, including procuring patents for a breakthrough rice planting device. To address the specific problem of the unduly labor-intensive, and unhealthy rice planting techniques that have prevailed in Cambodia for centuries, engineers at Brooklyn Bridge to Cambodia created the "Eli Rice Seeder," a low-cost mechanical planting device that uses high-pressure air to shoot rice seeds into the soil at regular intervals.
Credentials
Credentials
- George Mason University School of Law, J.D., 2002
- Intellectual Property Law Program
- Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D., 1993
- Chemistry / Biochemistry
- University of Toledo, B.S., 1987
- Chemistry
- District of Columbia
- Maryland
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
- Patent Advisory
- Patent Counseling and Prosecution
- Administrative Proceedings and Litigation
- Patent Office (PTAB) Proceedings
- Patent Litigation
Previous Experience
Previous Experience
- Rick has been a patent attorney specializing in pharmaceuticals, chemistry, and biochemistry at several large firms (2000-2020).
- Rick was a patent examiner in the United States Patent & Trademark Office (1996-2000) where he examined patent applications in the areas of recombinant proteins, enzymes and other areas of biotechnology.
- Rick was a post-doctoral research fellow at a major pharmaceutical company (1993-1996) where he conducted research on the interaction of recombinant human G-protein coupled receptors with small molecule antagonists and mapping of receptor-ligand binding sites.