Richard B. Lazarus is of counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Barnes & Thornburg LLP. His practice involves all aspects of patent application prosecution including interference practice, petition matters, and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) matters. He has served as a PCT and patent “expert” witness in litigated cases.
Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Mr. Lazarus worked in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as an examiner, a supervisory primary examiner, an academy instructor, curriculum committee head, and manager of the Patent Academy. In 1974-75, Mr. Lazarus served as a Department of Commerce Science and Technology Fellow, including five months in the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Commerce, and five months as science advisor to U.S. House of Representatives Congressman Charles Mosher. After returning to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, he was appointed to the staff of the then Assistant Commissioner for Patents, where he served for eight years. His duties included investigation and speaker on fraud and duty of disclosure issues (37 CFR 1.56), petitions, and PCT matters. Mr. Lazarus represented the U.S. as one of two delegates to PCT meetings in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1990 and 1991. As the first manager of the PCT Legal Affairs Branch, he hired and trained many examiners, attorneys, and other staff. In 2000, Mr. Lazarus was appointed an Administrative Patent Judge on the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences and served until he joined Barnes & Thornburg in 2001.
Mr. Lazarus is the author of “PCT and Patent Validity” published in Volume 87, No. 10, of the October 2005 edition of the Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office, and "Patent Cooperation Treaty - Implementation v. U.S. Law" published in 5 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 640 (2006). He is a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Patent Lawyers Club of Washington, and the Patent Office Practice (U.S.) Standing Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association. Mr. Lazarus is admitted to practice in Maryland, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. His degrees are from Purdue University and the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. Mr. Lazarus has been appointed as Adjunct Instructor at Georgetown University (summer 2008).