PTAB Practitioner's Series: Great LEAP Forward!

Building on the explanatory animation on the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)’s Legal Experience and Advancement Program (LEAP), Michelle Aspen will discuss how LEAP helps junior attorneys gain trial advocacy skills by providing opportunities to practice at Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) oral arguments. LEAP preparation includes training and mentoring on oral advocacy, the use of demonstratives, effective use of hearing time, etiquette, and other logistics of an oral hearing. Ms. Aspen is Senior Patent Counsel at Unified Patents, LLC and works to deter assertions of weak patents through monitoring NPE activity and petitioning for review in AIA proceedings and reexaminations before the USPTO, preparing comments to proposed rules, and drafting research-supported amicus briefs.