Kristin Doyle

Kristin J. Doyle serves as the co-team leader of the firm’s Mechanical & Medical Device Patent Team. She also serves on the firm’s Post-Grant Proceedings Team and has managed a number of inter partes review proceedings. For close to twenty years, Ms. Doyle has been responsible for counseling her clients in all aspects of patent law, including patent procurement, patent litigation, licensing, diligence related to IP transactions, and patent monetization.

Ms. Doyle oversees the strategic development of meaningful patent portfolios for clients in a variety of technical industries, including the lighting, medical device, animal processing, floorcovering, heat transfer tubing, industrial process and textile industries. She has developed both industry- and technology-specific experience that enable her to counsel her clients in how to maximize their efforts to develop and strategically leverage their intellectual property.

Ms. Doyle is a trusted advisor to clients who want to ensure that their activities do not infringe upon the patent rights of others, all the while driving litigation against competitors who infringe on her clients’ patent rights. She helps clients navigate the relevant technology landscape so as to avoid infringement while developing commercially viable products suitable for patent protection themselves.

Ms. Doyle enjoys engaging in the high level patent strategy involved in litigating patent cases. While she has experience with all aspects of patent litigation, she particularly enjoys working with experts, claim construction and summary judgment briefing, and appellate practice.

Ms. Doyle was recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® in 2018 and 2019 for Patent Law.

Experience:

• Kilpatrick Townsend represents Interface, Inc., the largest carpet tile manufacturer worldwide. Recent highlights include:
  • -Kilpatrick Townsend patented every aspect of SKY-TILES®, Interface’s revolutionary airplane carpet tiles, including the tiles, the manufacturing method, and the installation method. With a robust patent family in place, Interface introduced SKY-TILES® to the airline industry and has since outfitted most of Southwest Airline’s fleet.
  • -The firm also advises Interface, Inc. on matters involving trademark clearance, trademark portfolio management, and trademark enforcement, as well as providing counsel on copyright and trademark issues arising in the context of carpet design and online and print media marketing.
  • We represented Interface Inc., a leading manufacturer of carpet tile, in patent litigation filed by one of its largest competitors alleging hundreds of millions of dollars in damages as a result of infringement of two patents. After a three-week jury trial, the jury took less than one hour to find that the competitor’s patents were invalid and that Interface did not infringe them. During the hearing on inequitable conduct issues, Interface reached a confidential settlement with the competitor resolving these issues as well as resolving Interface’s counterclaims for infringement of two of its own patents.
  • Successfully represented Lee Valley Tools Ltd. in obtaining a U.S. patent and patent re-issuance for a power tool accessory, and successfully represented Lee Valley Tools Ltd. in a patent infringement suit against a large, multinational industrial equipment manufacturer and its customer, a large retailer, involving this same power tool accessory.
  • We develop and manage the patent portfolio for Interface, a leading manufacturer of carpet tile, through the use of both design and utility patent protection. Interface’s inventions often include both ornamental and utilitarian aspects. By understanding the carpet tile design process and how designs impact the functionality of carpet tiles, we have been able to secure groundbreaking utility patents directed to design features on the tiles by establishing the utilitarian functions and benefits of such features. Interface has also charged us with enforcing its patents and defending them against attacks all over the world.
  • Advises a thermal engineering company that manufactures tubes for use in a variety of industries, including HVAC, refrigeration and appliance, and electronics cooling in patent procurement. The company strives to develop metal surface technology enhancements that improve performance of the tubes in their relevant applications, and the firm assists in procuring patents to protect such developments.
  • Represents one of the world’s leading providers of lighting fixtures and related products and services by reviewing and assessing the strength of patents owned by target companies that our client considers investing in or purchasing. Our client’s primary motivation is ensuring its ability to market products it considers vital to pursuit of its business plans. Because we understand both the products and the plans, instead of an exhaustive review of all patents owned by a target company, we are able quickly to identify the key patents that can potentially impact our client’s core business and devote the majority of our time on a diligence project analyzing those patents. This more cost-effective, streamlined approach, provides our client with the information it needs to make business decisions.
  • Represents one of the world’s leading providers of lighting fixtures in providing comprehensive and aggressive patent protection. The firm works intimately with in-house patent counsel and the inventors to understand the inventions and their importance in the company’s overall business strategy. We endeavor to secure multiple layers of patent protection for key products and consider both utility and design patents when deciding how best to protect a product. We routinely conduct patentability and clearance searching so that we have a clear understanding of the state of the art. Such searching assists the client in avoiding potential patent infringement and helps us identify the truly novel features of our clients’ inventions and focus prosecution on those features. By streamlining the patenting process, we control costs and obtain patents as quickly as possible for our client so that they may be put to good use.
  • Provides patent procurement and counseling services to Smith & Nephew, an industry leader in the development of advanced medical devices and implants. The company offers technically innovative products in areas such as orthopedic reconstruction and trauma, endoscopy, advanced wound management and biologics. Provide counsel and advice in all aspects of the company’s business, including helping shape its overall patent strategy. As part of this, the firm takes an active role in identifying and protecting innovations, as well as evaluating third-party intellectual property rights. Further, the firm provides counseling in connection with the company’s patent licensing and acquisition activities and has represented the company in several patent infringement matters.

Education:

• Emory University School of Law, J.D. (1998)with honors, Order of the Coif
• Georgia Institute of Technology, B.S., Industrial Engineering (1995) with highest honors

Admissions:

• Georgia (1998)

Court Admissions:

• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1999)
• Supreme Court of Georgia (2004)
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (2004)