Kunin-Stephen

Mr. Kunin is a Partner at Maier & Maier PLLC, where he specializes in all areas of patent practice. His expertise includes post-issuance proceedings at the United States Patent Office, opinions of counsel, advising attorneys and our clients on complex patent prosecution matters, patent litigation strategy, and United States Patent Office patent policy, practice and procedure, for which he is highly sought after for expert testimony. Mr. Kunin has presented expert testimony covering numerous subjects, including:

1. Duty of candor and good faith (inequitable conduct)
2. Subject matter eligibility and utility
3. Restriction practice and double patenting
4. Inventorship
5. Declaration/affidavit practice
6. Certificates of correction
7. Petitions practice
8. Reexamination and reissue
9. Interferences
10. Ownership
11. Statutory disclaimers
12. Written description
13. Date of public availability of abandoned applications referenced in prior art publications
14. Prosecution laches
15. Right of priority under Paris Convention

In addition to serving as an expert witness, Mr. Kunin has vast experience in providing lectures on recent US patent law developments across the USA, Europe and the Far East.  He has more than 48 years of experience in the patent profession.

After graduating from Washington University (MO) with a Bachelor’s in Science in Electrical Engineering with honors in 1970, Mr. Kunin embarked on his lengthy career over nearly 35 years at the United States Patent Office. He received his JD in law degree with honors in 1975 from The National Law Center at George Washington University. He held many significant positions with the USPTO, which culminated with ten years of service as the Deputy Commissioner for Patent Examination Policy from 1994-2004. While at the USPTO, he was a leading voice in forming patent policy, in revising examination guidelines on subject matter eligibility, utility, non-obviousness and written description, and in establishing reissue and reexamination procedures. Mr. Kunin spearheaded revisions to the Rules of Practice and Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, making key changes to chapters on ex parte reexamination, reissue, and inter partes reexamination.

Since leaving the PTO, Mr. Kunin has been a practicing patent attorney for more than 13 years counseling clients in post-grant patent proceedings at the USPTO and routinely serves as an expert witness in patent litigation cases. He is a registered patent attorney with the USPTO, and admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Virginia, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and before the United States Supreme Court. From 2005 through 2017, Mr. Kunin served as the Intellectual Property Program Director at the Antonin Scalia School of Law at George Mason University, while teaching patent and intellectual property law classes as an adjunct professor of law.

Over the course of his illustrious career, Mr. Kunin has received many notable awards, including the Meritorious Executive Presidential Rank Award, The Vice President’s Reinventing Government Hammer Award , four Gold Medals, three Silver Medals, and one Bronze Medal from the Department of Commerce, and a Career Achievement Award from the USPTO. He was named one of Intellectual Property Today’s most influential people in IP law, in May of 2018 he was named one of Managing Intellectual Property’s “IP stars,” and he was also recognized by IAM Patent 1000 in the field of Patent Law.