Thomas J. Vetter

Of Counsel

Thomas Vetter has more than 25 years of experience in all aspects of patent litigation, interferences, and counseling.

He spent most of his career in patent litigation practice at Fish & Neave, beginning in 1981 and continuing through the merger with Ropes & Gray.

His experience also includes complex patent prosecution matters, such as merged reissue/reexamination, as well as transactional experience including negotiating and drafting patent licenses and performing intellectual property due diligence investigations. His counseling experience includes opinions on patentability, freedom to operate, and patent validity.

Mr. Vetter’s experience spans a broad range of technologies including polymer products and processes, plastic composites, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, reactive distillation processes, erasable ink, reactive DC sputtering, reverse osmosis membranes, phenol production, transdermal patches, oral sustained release drugs, nickel-titanium shape memory alloys, GPS offender tracking, paper production, sutures, airbag deployment systems, personal watercraft shock absorption systems, cushion-backed carpet tile, optical waveguides, large cavity tunable lasers, broadband data delivery systems, and large stream turbines.

Representative Cases:

Polimeri Europa (formerly Enichem) v. General Electric (interference concerning a process for the manufacture of dimethyl carbonate)

Zakoshansky (General Electric) v. Hertzog (Sunoco) (interference concerning a process for the conversion of cumene to phenol)

ExxonMobil v. Chevron Phillips (interference concerning the efficient recovery of diluants in a particle form slurry loop reactor used for making polyolefins)

Hratch Khedesian, Trustee, Mardikian 1991 Irrevocable Trust v. Bombardier Motor Corporation of America (U.S. District Court action concerning shock absorbing seats in personal watercraft)

Advanced Energy v. Astec (Emerson Electric) (U.S. District Court action concerning a reactive DC sputtering technology for preventing electrical arcs)

Key Pharmaceuticals (Schering Plough) (a series of ANDA litigations against a number of defendants concerning transdermal patches)

Pro Bono:

Disabled in Action v. Duane Reade (U.S. District Court action concerning the Americans with Disabilities Act and features of Duane Reade’s New York area stores that made them inaccessible to the mobility impaired)

EDUCATION

Brooklyn Law School, Juris Doctor, Magna Cum Laude
Princeton University B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering

AFFILIATIONS

American Bar Association

Section of Litigation

Section of Intellectual Property Law

New York Intellectual Property Law Association
Licensing Executives Society

ADMISSIONS

New York State Bar
U.S. District Court - Southern District of NY
U.S. District Court - Eastern District of NY
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office