Ben Kiersz is a special counsel in Pillsbury’s Intellectual Property practice. Located in the Northern Virginia office, Ben focuses on patent litigation, counseling and prosecution.
Ben has litigated patent, trade secret, and unfair competition disputes involving recreational vehicles, industrial power tools, consumer products, automotive products, pharmaceuticals, and internet business methods, among others. He has experience in pre-filing investigations, pleadings and motions practice, discovery, pretrial preparation, trial, arbitration, and appeals. He has taken and defended numerous fact and expert depositions in connection with federal patent litigations, and has argued before Federal district and appellate courts.
Ben also has experience in patent prosecution and client counseling in the mechanical arts.
Representative Experience
- Represented University of Kansas professor and research assistant in co-inventorship litigation and arbitration against U.S. government and two large pharmaceutical companies. Clients named co-inventors of two patents for multibillion-dollar-per-year anticancer drug.
- Successfully argued an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit from a U.S.P.T.O Board decision rejecting a reissue patent application. The Federal Circuit vacated the Board’s decision.
- Represented a consumer products manufacturer in patent infringement suit against a key competitor. Second-chaired a jury trial on patent infringement liability. The jury found both of the client’s asserted patents valid.
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- Represented Atlas Copco as the patent challenger in two IPR proceedings, based on two patents involved in eight cases pending in District Court of Delaware. The PTAB issued final written decisions in favor of Atlas Copco, finding all challenged claims unpatentable. Upon the patent holder’s appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s decisions, resulting in a complete victory for Atlas Copco.
- Successfully defended a global power tool manufacturer against a competitor’s suit asserting patent infringement, unfair competition, Lanham Act violations, fraud, breach of confidential relationship, and breach of contract.
- Successfully represented a heavy duty power tool manufacturer in developing a patent portfolio protecting its core technology, and in enforcing that portfolio against a variety of infringers. The enforcement work has included representing the client in pre-litigation settlements that have stopped competitor infringement without the need to file suit.
- Has drafted and prosecuted patent applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on behalf of clients in such fields as recreational vehicles, aircraft and automotive components, hand tools, power tools, and one-way vision panels.
- Helps clients assess the patentability of their products, avoid potential liability through non-infringement and invalidity analysis, and design around potentially disruptive patents.
Education
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J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 2001
magna cum laude, Order of the CoifB.S., Mechanical Engineering, Bucknell University, 1998
summa cum laude
Admissions
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Virginia
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office