Overview
Tyler C. Liu is counsel in Sterne Kessler’s Biotechnology & Chemical Practice Group. His practice focuses on complex patent disputes in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, including inter partes review (IPR) and post-grant review (PGR) proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), ex parte reexaminations before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and patent litigation in federal district court where he represents both patent owners and challengers across these forums.
Tyler has extensive experience in contested proceedings before the USPTO, from developing pre-filing and institution strategy, expert discovery, and proceedings before the PTAB. His PTAB work includes developing challenges to and defenses of patent validity, working closely with technical experts, and addressing issues such as claim construction, discretionary denial, and the interaction between PTAB proceedings and parallel patent litigation.
His experience in ex parte reexamination proceedings include developing requests for reexamination and representing patent owners after reexamination has been ordered. He also develops strategies for challenging or defending patentability before the USPTO’s Central Reexamination Unit, particularly where reexamination proceedings intersect with parallel district court litigation or other Patent Office proceedings.
Tyler represents clients in complex biotechnology and pharmaceutical patent litigation, including disputes involving innovator, generic, and biosimilar products and matters. His litigation work includes developing and defending positions on infringement, noninfringement, validity, and invalidity, as well as addressing complex scientific and patent issues throughout a dispute. Drawing on his experience across district court, PTAB, and reexamination proceedings, Tyler brings a coordinated approach to disputes in which related patent issues are being litigated across multiple forums.
Before joining Sterne Kessler, Tyler was in-house counsel at a generic pharmaceutical company, where he worked on strategic planning for IPR and PGR matters and drafted petitions, expert declarations, and other papers in post-grant proceedings. This in-house experience provides Tyler with a practical understanding of how patent disputes fit within the broader business and litigation objectives of pharmaceutical companies.
Tyler’s technical background is in biochemistry, molecular biology, and neurobiology. During graduate school, he studied missense polymorphisms in the gene encoding gonadotropin-releasing hormone among patients with metastatic prostate cancer at the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He received his J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, his M.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Georgetown University, and his B.A. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Technical Publication
- Tristan M. Sissung, Sarah Lochrin, Tyler Liu, Keith Schmidt, Jonathan Strope, Emily Risdon, Hyoyoung Choo-Wosoba, David J. Venzon, Wiem Lassoued, Houssein A. Sater, Beatriz Walter-Rodriguez, Douglas K. Price & William D. Figg, GNRH2 Polymorphism in Men With Prostate Cancer Treated With Androgen Deprivation Therapy, 43 Anticancer Rsch. 4023, 4023–30 (2023).
Education
- J.D., The George Washington University Law School
- M.S., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Georgetown University, Academic Excellence Award
- B.A., Molecular and Cellular Biology, Neurobiology, minor in Chinese, University of California at Berkeley
Languages Spoken
- Chinese (Mandarin)