Dr. Nancy J. Linck, PhD

Dr. Nancy J. Linck is a former Administrative Patent Judge on the Board at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Nancy is also the former Solicitor of the USPTO.  In that role, she was the chief legal officer of the entire agency, including defending more than one hundred of the Board’s decisions at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.  Nancy received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for her work on USPTO patentability guidelines applicable to both computer and life science inventions.

Before joining the USPTO, Nancy clerked for the Federal Circuit and conducted patent litigation in private practice.  After leaving her Judgeship, Nancy returned to private practice to specialize in contested post-grant cases before the USPTO.

Nancy is co-author of the treatise Post-Grant Patent Practice, published by the Bureau of National Affairs and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. Her treatise focuses on AIA trials such as Inter Partes Review.

Dr. Linck is an expert on USPTO practice including Inter Partes Review.

EDUCATION

• Ph.D. & M.S., Inorganic Chemistry, University of California, San Diego, 1982 & 1980, respectively
• M.S. in Biotechnology, Johns Hopkins University, 2009
• B.S., cum laude, University of California, Berkeley 1973
• J.D., magna cum laude, Western New England University School of Law, 1984

BAR LOCATION

• U.S. Supreme Court, 1988
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 1987
• District of Columbia, 1986
• Massachusetts, 1985
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 1986