Ms. Durkin leads the Mechanical Patent and Trademark Group. With over twenty years of experience obtaining and enforcing intellectual property rights, she melds her expertise with utility and design patents, trademarks, and copyrights to create a unique IP protection strategy to meet her clients' individual needs. Ms. Durkin’s experience includes helping clear new products and trademarks for use in the marketplace, selecting appropriate IP protection, and enforcing such protection through mediation, litigation and licensing. She is sought out for her knowledge of design patents, brand development strategies and eliminating copycat consumer products from the marketplace to prevent the devaluation of IP rights.
Ms. Durkin has represented companies in patent, trademark and copyright disputes before Federal District Courts, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the International Trade Commission, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences, and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. She has successfully represented both complainants and respondents before the World Intellectual Property Office in domain name arbitrations. Her prior experience working at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office gives her unique insight into arguing difficult cases and negotiating with examiners in personal interviews. She has served as an expert witness in design patent disputes in district court litigation.
Ms. Durkin has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at George Mason University Law School in Virginia and has spoken internationally on topics such as the interplay between design patents and trade dress, IP audits, mediation, IP protection on the Internet, and trademark co-branding and licensing. She is vice chair of the Industrial Designs Committee of the Intellectual Property Owners Association and past chair of the Industrial Design Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.
In addition to her current role as practice group leader at Sterne Kessler, she is the first woman elected equity director and is the first woman to serve on the executive committee where she served three terms. She is the past chair of the recruiting committee and currently serves on the firm's diversity task force. Active in community service, she currently serves as the president of The Women's Bar Association Foundation and is a past president of the Women's Bar Association of the District of Columbia.
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