Attorneys & STAFF

Jeff is an experienced attorney specializing in intellectual property law. Jeff’s law practice is focused on preparation and prosecution of patent and trademark applications, legal opinions concerning patent and trademark infringement, validity, and enforceability, transactional work involving intellectual property, including NDAs and software licensing, and advice on copyright and Internet matters. Jeff is an Emeritus Member of the Licensing Executives Society and helps clients with settlements through licensing contracts. In addition, Jeff is a trained legal mediator. Jeff recently co-authored a “friend of the court” brief supporting overturning a holding of inequitable conduct by prosecuting patent attorneys based solely on bad conduct of litigation patent attorneys.  Jeff has supervised depositions of key witnesses as in-house patent counsel and has been deposed several times on the patent plaintiff side. Jeff’s deposition supporting the patents in suit led to a significant damages award for “lost profits” based on foreign sales and was upheld 7-2 by the U.S. Supreme Court. WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. (2018) 

Jeff’s technical experience varies over a wide variety of technologies, including energy, chemicals, catalytic reaction processes (such as photocatalytic production of hydrogen from water), nanomaterials, semiconductor manufacturing, electromagnetic inspection, computerized light and sound choreography, software patents, medical and dental devices, consumer and commercial products, industrial gases, cryogenics, products used in R&D, wireless communications, water treatment equipment and processes, and many others.

Regarding trademarks, Jeff has a considerable trademark docket, and enjoys helping clients choose and register protectable marks and avoid problems with and defend clients against assertion of third-party marks.

Prior to Jeff’s law career, he worked as a process engineer, operations engineer, and inspection engineer for Unocal (formerly known as Union 76, now part of Chevron).

Outside of the office, when he is not spending time with his grandchildren, Jeff enjoys old and new automotive technology, watching sports, especially football, baseball, college basketball, and auto racing. Jeff also likes golfing (both regular and disc golf), hiking, and exploring craft breweries and wineries, and staying in physical shape to be ready to serve family, clients, and those in need.