Seed IP Law Group proudly welcomes Karen M. Henckel as Of Counsel in the Mechanical Engineering Group. Karen specializes in preparing and prosecuting patent applications over a broad range of mechanical and electro-mechanical technologies. She also counsels clients in other areas of intellectual property law including validity and infringement analysis, agreements, and technology licensing. Karen received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Washington and a J.D. from the Arizona State University. She is admitted to the Washington State Bar and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Karen is a member Washington State Patent Law Association and the King County Bar Association.

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Law students Eben D. Allen (Seattle University School of Law) and Duncan Stark (University of Washington School of Law) were recently selected as the recipients of Seed Intellectual Property Law Group’s annual Founders Scholarships for year 2011. In 2003, Seed IP Law Group created two scholarships to honor its founders, Richard W. Seed and Benjamin F. Berry. Seed IP Law Group’s Founders Scholarships are given annually to students at the University of Washington and Seattle University Schools of Law. Seed IP seeks to annually recognize outstanding students who have a keen interest in the field of intellectual property law and who also have an undergraduate degree that qualifies him/her to sit for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Bar Exam. “We think it’s very important to train the next generation of intellectual property attorneys so that we can continue to build on the legacy started by Ben Berry and Dick Seed,” said Karl R. Hermanns, Seed IP’s Managing Partner. “Only through strong support of higher education will our country continue to be a leader in the world.”

Seed IP Law Group PLLC is the Silver Sponsor for the upcoming MIT Enterprise Forum, “Cloud by Example:  Exploring the Business Case for Cloud Computing,” taking place on Nov. 16, 2011, from 5:00 - 8:30 p.m., at the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI), in Seattle.

Moderating the panel discussion will be Tim Porter, General Partner, Madrona Venture Group.

The panelists include Damon Danieli, Founder and CTO, Z2Live, Inc.; Ingvar Petursson, Senior Vice President, Information Technology, Nintendo; Ashwin Muthuvenkataraman, Product Manager, Expedia; and JB Brown, Innovation Lab Program Manager, Nordstrom.

The forum will explore the process of selecting, implementing, and managing a cloud computing solution from the perspective of four use cases: (a) migrating enterprise applications; (b) enabling rapid development and fast go-to-market; (c) deploying mobile applications; and, (d) deploying social/gaming applications.

You’ll hear from this panel of experienced cloud users and benefit from the lessons they’ve learned in implementing cloud-based solutions. The panelists will discuss the business and product needs that led them to adopt cloud computing and how they evaluated various cloud providers to find those best suited to their requirements. The panel will provide insight into the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing a cloud-based solution.

Please see full details about this event, including program, pricing, registration, and directions, at the link below.

Click here for more details.

U.S. News Media Group and Best Lawyers® have released the 2011-2012 Best Law Firms® rankings, marking the second edition of this highly-anticipated annual analysis. Seed IP Law Group PLLC ranks in Tier 1 for Patent Law, Biotechnology Law, Trademark Law, Copyright Law, and Information Technology Law in the Seattle-area. The rankings showcase 9,633 different law firms ranked nationally in one or more of 119 major legal practice areas. These rankings are presented in tiers both nationally and by metropolitan area or by state, providing a comprehensive view of the U.S. legal profession that is unprecedented both in the range of firms represented and in the range of qualitative and quantitative data used to develop the rankings. Achieving a high ranking is a special distinction that signals a unique combination of excellence and breadth of expertise.

The mission of Best Law Firms from the start has been to help guide referring lawyers and clients – from the country’s largest companies needing corporate legal advice to individuals who need a high level of legal work because of the particularly difficult legal issues presented, or for legal issues of a particular magnitude.

“U.S. News has more than two decades of experience in providing the public with the most accurate and in-depth rankings of a wide range of institutions, including Best Law Schools rankings” says Tim Smart, Executive Editor of U.S. News & World Report. “Law firms are an integral part of our rankings and a natural accompaniment to the law school rankings.”

“Best Lawyers was very pleased with the reaction from the legal profession and from legal clients to the first edition of the Best Law Firms rankings,” says Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers. “By combining hard data with peer reviews, and client assessments, we continue to believe that we are providing clients with the most thorough, accurate, and helpful rankings of law firms ever developed.”

About the U.S. News Media Group
The U.S. News Media Group is a multi-platform digital publisher of news and analysis, which includes the monthly U.S. News & World Report magazine, the digital-only U.S. News Weekly magazine, www.usnews.com, and www.rankingsandreviews.com. Focusing on Health, Money & Business, Education, and Public Service/Opinion, the U.S. News Media Group has earned a reputation as the leading provider of service news and information that improves the quality of life of its readers. The U.S. News Media Group’s signature franchises include its NEWS You Can Use® brand of journalism and its series of consumer guides that include rankings of colleges, graduate schools, hospitals, health plans, and more.

About Best Lawyers®
Best Lawyers is the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. For over a quarter century, the company has helped lawyers and clients find legal counsel in distant jurisdictions or unfamiliar specialties. The 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America includes 41,284 lawyers covering all 50 states and the District of Columbia and is based on more than 3.9 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers. Best Lawyers also publishes peer-reviewed listings of lawyers in nearly 70 other countries, covering most of the world’s major legal markets. Best Lawyers lists are excerpted in a wide range of general interest, business and legal publications worldwide, reaching an audience of more than 17 million readers.

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Seed IP’s Mechanical Engineering & Trademark Group proudly welcomes new associate Christopher A. Bullard. Chris specializes in mechanical patent prosecution, trademark clearance and registration, intellectual property licensing, and IP enforcement and litigation matters. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University (2000) and a J.D. from the Washington & Lee University School of Law (2006). Prior to joining Seed IP Law Group, Chris gained extensive experience at a large, Washington, D.C. area law firm preparing and prosecuting patent applications, including several successfully argued appeals before the U.S.P.T.O. Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. His experience includes counseling clients with patentability, infringement and non-infringement opinions, and representing clients in both ex parte and inters partes reexamination proceedings. Chris’ diverse technical experience includes automotive technologies, semiconductor processing equipment, medical devices, aerospace technologies, and consumer products.

Chris is admitted to the Virginia State Bar, is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and is admitted to practice before the Unites States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Chris currently serves as a Member of Council of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA-IPL). Within the ABA-IPL, he has also served as the Chair of the Patent and Trademark Office Affairs Committee – Patents (2010-2011), Chair of the Young Lawyers Committee (2008-2010), and as a Member of the Editorial Board of Landslide (2008-2010). Chris is also a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Washington State Patent Law Association, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

See profile for Christopher Bullard

Seed IP’s Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Group proudly welcomes new associates James Fearon Brown and Michael S. Czarnecki.

Fearon specializes in software patent prosecution and intellectual property enforcement. He received a M.S. in Computer Science (1991) and a B.S. in Human Development (1988), both from Vanderbilt University. He obtained an M.B.A. from Seattle University in 1999 and received his J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law in 2008. Fearon’s practice focuses on patent prosecution and strategic counseling, including patent drafting, prosecution, and procurement of U.S. and foreign patents in software and Internet technologies. Prior to joining Seed IP, Fearon’s professional experience included twelve years working at Microsoft Corporation where he was a program manager of internal financial software. More recently, he worked at an area law firm for three years, litigating patent, trademark, trade secret, and intellectual property ownership disputes. Fearon is admitted to the Washington State Bar and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

See profile for Fearon Brown

Mike specializes in patent prosecution and counseling, including patent drafting, prosecution, and procurement of U.S. and foreign patents in the fields of software and Internet, electronics and semiconductors, electrical engineering, RFID, LCD, and mechanical technologies. He received a M.S. in Electrical Engineering (1995) from The John Hopkins University, and a B.S. in Chemical Engineering (1987) from the University of Maryland. Mike received his J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center in 2007. Prior to joining Seed IP, Mike’s professional experience included working for several years at the Hewlett-Packard Company as Intellectual Property Counsel. While at HP, he prepared and prosecuted US and PCT patent applications in a multitude of practice areas, including board and system level hardware, streaming media, audio/video signal processing, 3D displays, touch displays, optical devices, computer hardware and software, networking, video conferencing, and business methods. Prior to his years at HP, Mike worked eight years as a Project Manager at PORI International, 11 years as Project and Plant Manager at Borden Chemical/Hexion Specialty Chemicals, and was Project/Plant Manager at Texas Petrochemicals, LP, for almost two years. He is a Registered Maryland Professional Engineer. Mike is admitted to the Texas State Bar and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

See profile for Michael Czarnecki

Seed IP Law Group is proud to announce that partner Bill Ferron has been named “Seattle Best Lawyers Information Technology Law Lawyer of the Year” for 2012 by Best Lawyers, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Ferron, who heads Seed IP’s IP Enforcement and Litigation Group, received particularly high ratings from his peers for his abilities, professionalism and integrity in the Best Lawyers annual survey of leading U.S. lawyers. The current, 18th edition of The Best Lawyers in America (2012) is based on more than 3.9 million detailed evaluations of lawyers by other lawyers. Best Lawyers compiles its lists of outstanding attorneys by conducting exhaustive peer-review surveys in which thousands of leading lawyers confidentially evaluate their professional peers. After more than a quarter of a century in publication, Best Lawyers is designating “Lawyers of the Year” in high-profile legal specialties in large legal communities. Only a single lawyer in each specialty in each community is being honored as the “Lawyer of the Year.”

Ferron has been providing quality IP services to leading Northwest companies for over 30 years, with a practice focusing on all aspects of intellectual property, including licensing, dispute resolution and litigation and has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since 1991.

Steven Naifeh, President of Best Lawyers, says, “We continue to believe – as we have believed for more than 25 years – that recognition by one’s peers is the most meaningful form of praise in the legal profession. We would like to congratulate William O. Ferron, Jr. on being selected as the ‘Seattle Best Lawyers Information Technology Law Lawyer of the Year’ for 2012.”

After years of false starts, the U.S. Senate has just passed the House version of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA), and on September 16, 2011 President Obama signed into law the most significant patent reform bill in over 50 years.  While the switch from “first-to-invent” to “first-to-file” has received that greatest attention, this legislation includes numerous changes to both U.S. patent law and practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).  Of course, many of the finer details of the new law will become clearer as it is analyzed over the next several months, and we intend to continue to update our comments as aspects of the new law are clarified.  For example, the USPTO has been working on a number of implementation regulations (see www.uspto.gov/patents/init_events/aia_implementation.jsp) which we will be following closely.  This summary is intended as an overview of the changes, but is clearly not the last word with regard to either strategy or implementation of the AIA.

Seed IP Law Group PLLC was recently awarded with the “Washington’s Best Workplaces 2011” accolade and plaque from the Puget Sound Business Journal at a recognition ceremony that took place at Safeco Field on August 11. For the fourth consecutive year, Puget Sound Business Journal has named Seed IP Law Group PLLC as one of “Washington’s Best Workplaces.” Initially launched in 2007, the “Washington’s Best Workplaces” program was created by the Puget Sound Business Journal in order to identify and recognize the best practices in the hiring and retention of great people. After an extensive and rigorous process, involving more than 300 nominated companies and the surveying of thousands of nominee-company employees across the state, workplaces in five different categories have been identified as “Washington’s Best”, based on their various employee benefit offerings, leadership culture, and work/life balance philosophies. Representing the Puget Sound area and beyond, the finalists (25 small companies, 25 medium-sized companies, 25 large companies, and 10 extra large companies) best exemplify Puget Sound Business Journal’s important role in drawing attention to innovations and excellence in the management of our region’s primary and best resource: its people.

More information can be found at: www.wabestworkplaces.com

Seed Intellectual Property Law Group PLLC is pleased to announce that eight of its attorneys, Frank Abramonte, David V. Carlson, William O. Ferron, Jr., Karl R. Hermanns, Lorraine Linford, Stephen J. Rosenman, Jeffrey M. Sakoi, and Richard G. Sharkey, are to be listed in the 2012 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Mr. Abramonte and Mr. Carlson are partners within Seed IP’s Electrical Engineering & Computer Science Group; Mr. Ferron, Jr., Ms. Linford, and Mr. Sakoi are partners within Seed IP’s Mechanical Engineering & Trademark Group; Mr. Hermanns, Dr. Rosenman, and Dr. Sharkey are partners within Seed IP’s Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals & Chemistry Group.

First published in 1983, Best Lawyers is based on an exhaustive annual peer-review survey. The upcoming 18th edition of Best Lawyers contains results based on a national survey involving more than 3.1 miilion detailed evaluations of lawyers and their legal abilities by other lawyers in the same and related specialties. Because of the rigorous and transparent methodology used by Best Lawyers, and because lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. Corporate Counsel magazine has called Best Lawyers “the most respected referral list of attorneys in practice.” Steven Naifeh, Managing Editor of Best Lawyers, says, “We continue to believe - as we have believed for 29 years - that recognition by one’s peers is the most meaningful form of recognition in the legal profession.” For the past three decades, Best Lawyers has come to be regarded - by both the legal profession and the public - as the definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States.