Seth A. Watkins

Of Counsel

• sethwatkins@steptoe.com
• vCard
• Washington Office

Seth A. Watkins is of counsel in the Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, where he practices in the Intellectual Property group. His areas of concentration include intellectual property strategic counseling, litigation, prosecution, due diligence, and agreement negotiation.

Dr. Watkins counsels clients in obtaining, protecting, licensing, and enforcing intellectual property, with a particular focus on patents. He is particularly experienced in the mechanical, biomedical, and materials arts. His client counseling has included strategic advice, opinions, and technology licensing, especially with regard to patent, copyright, and trade secret aspects of inventions. Prior to joining Steptoe, Dr. Watkins practiced law at one of the largest intellectual property firms in the United States.

Dr. Watkins has litigated a variety of intellectual property disputes at the district court and appellate levels and in the International Trade Commission including patent infringement actions covering such topics as hard disk drives, WiFi and other wireless technologies, telephony technologies, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) / Internet telephony, metal cutting technology, wastewater treatment, hybrid electric vehicle batteries, and food technology. In addition, he has argued before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. 

To support his technological patent practice, Dr. Watkins relies upon his advanced educational background. He completed a Ph.D. in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Duke University and focused his research on the mechanical behavior and materials science of ceramic materials including high temperature superconductors. Additionally, his Master's studies concentrated on the thermomechanical behavior of silver/ceramic composites for use in electrical applications. Dr. Watkins' research has involved analytical techniques such as x-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, and Auger electron spectroscopy. As an undergraduate, Dr. Watkins completed a double major in Public Policy Studies with particular emphasis in science and defense policy.  

Dr. Watkins has served on the mechanical engineering faculty at Duke. He previously taught courses in dynamic/control systems and advanced mechanical systems design. He has also conducted classes on intellectual property, entrepreneurship, marketing, and energy technology and the environment. Dr. Watkins continues to serve as an Adjunct Assistant Professor and remains active in an engineering research capacity. In addition, he is a member of the Board of Visitors of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke.

Dr. Watkins also has been appointed as a Lecturer at The Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, where he has taught the Introduction to Intellectual Property Law class (2007) and the Advanced Patent Law class (2008).

Select News & Events

• Maximizing Your Assets: Building Managing and Defending Your Intellectual Property Portfolio, April 3, 2008
• Seth Watkins on Teleconference Panel, April 27, 2006
• Patent Law Reform Teleconference, November 17, 2005, (A Steptoe-Sponsored Event)
• Patent Reform Teleconference, June 28, 2005, (A Steptoe-Sponsored Event)

Publications

• Litigating the Business Method Patent: Pitfalls for Unwary Defendants
  2006, The Intellectual Property Strategist Vol 12 No 12
• Implications of Patent Reform
  Who Wins, Who Loses? Executive Summary and Update from 6/28/05 Teleconference
  July 29, 2005
• Lunar Ice: Adsorbed Water on Subsurface Polar Dust
  2002, with F. H. Cocks, P. A. Klenk, W. N. Simmons, J. C. Cocks, E. E. Cocks, and J. C. Sussingham, Icarus 160
• Forty Years of Development of Active Systems for Radiation Protection of Spacecraft
  1999, with J. C. Sussingham and F. H. Cocks, The Journal of the Astronautical Sciences 47(3-4)
• X-ray and Neutron Diffraction of Yttrium-Barium-Copper-Oxide: Modeling Diffraction Intensity Variations Produced by Surface Leaching
  1999, with F. H. Cocks, Journal of Materials Research 14(7)
• Applications for Deployed High Temperature Superconducting Coils in Spacecraft Engineering: A Review and Analysis
  1997, with J. C. Cocks, F. H. Cocks, and C. Sussingham, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 50(12)
• X-ray and Neutron Diffraction Study of Electromigration Effects in High Temperature Superconductor Materials
  September 1996, Ph.D. Dissertation, Duke University

Professional Affiliations

• US Patent and Trademark Office, 2000-present
• Adjunct/Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, 1997-present
• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Astronautical Society
• American Ceramic Society
• American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• ASM
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Materials Research Society
• Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers