Ken Burchfiel has been a Partner at Sughrue Mion for over 20 years, counseling and representing clients in litigation in federal district courts, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and in appeals in the Federal Circuit, regional circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He has extensive experience conducting complex litigation and interference proceedings, and has represented individual corporations, industry consortia, and U.S. government agencies. His current principal focus as a member of Sughrue's Pharma Litigation Group is Hatch-Waxman Act ANDA litigation involving drugs such as Lipitor®, Cymbalta®, Lyrica®, and Zithromax®.
Mr. Burchfiel has frequently testified as a patent law expert in federal court litigation on topics including patent infringement, the doctrine of equivalents, validity, double patenting, inventorship, interference procedure, prior invention, inequitable conduct, numerous aspects of patent office procedure, patent valuation, and legal malpractice, in cases involving biotechnology inventions (monoclonal antibodies, humanized antibodies, bovine growth hormone, human growth hormone, RNA interference), pharmaceuticals, and business methods and systems. He has also served as a consulting expert in mediation involving malpractice issues.
Mr. Burchfiel lectures on topics including U.S. patent protection for biosimilars, litigation strategies for generic drug manufacturers in Hatch-Waxman litigation, biotechnology and interference law, and developments including proposed patent opposition provisions. He is a member of the faculty of the Japanese Intellectual Property Association, and has taught CLE courses on patent law developments including the 2009 Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreements Act, patent term extension, and the Japanese patent system.
He received his A.B., cum laude, from Amherst College and his J.D. from Cornell University.
Mr. Burchfiel is the author of of the Bloomberg BNA treatise Biotechnology and the Federal Circuit.