RAYMOND K. CHAN

Raymond K. Chan is an associate at Gauntlett & Associates. His practice is focused on intellectual property litigation. Mr. Chan has successfully litigated patent, design patent, trademark and trade dress matters.

Recently, Mr. Chan successfully represented the defendants in a patent infringement suit by invalidating all asserted patent claims on summary judgments in Tokai Corp. et al. v. Easton Enterprises, Inc. et al. (C.D. Cal. case no. 07-CV-0883).

Tokai charged Easton with willful infringement of three patents on utility lighters. Easton had obtained from prior counsel an opinion letter setting forth a non-infringement position only with respect to one of the asserted patents. However, Mr. Chan was able to ascertain in discovery that Tokai's products were not marked with the other two patents during the relevant period, defeating Tokai's claim of willful infringement.

On cross-motions for summary judgment, Mr. Chan successfully argued that Tokai's patents on safety mechanisms for utility lighters were analogous to prior art safety mechanisms for cigarette lighters. Relying on the Supreme Court's decision in KSR v. Teleflex, Mr. Chan argued that a person of ordinary skill would apply the prior art to a utility lighter as the prior art addressed the same problem as Tokai's patents. The Court agreed, and invalidated all asserted patent claims as being obvious in view of the cited prior art.

Mr. Chan also speaks Chinese (Mandarin & Cantonese).