By taking the time to truly understand a client’s business, goals, and vision, Chris is able to provide practical legal insight to ensure their patent strategy is in sync with company objectives. Whether a small technology incubator or a Fortune 100 company, Chris can help plan an international strategy that protects products, provides cross-licensing opportunities, and builds patent strongholds that force competitors to re-evaluate their own activity.
Chris helps clients achieve their business objectives in three main areas: creating and managing an international patent portfolio fine-tuned to meet business needs; analyzing the competitive patent landscape to ensure the business risk associated with commercial activity is manageable and evaluating third party patent portfolios as part of the acquisition process so value attributed to the portfolio is right-sized.
With a background in chemical engineering and twenty years of experience working in a wide range of technologies, Chris can help any company with their patent strategy. He is particularly comfortable with the chemical and mechanical arts, but has significant experience building a team to tackle any technology. Specific areas of experience include catalysts, agricultural chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, consumable products, polymeric coatings, cosmetics, and textiles.
Representative Experience
Any result the lawyer or law firm may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.
- Directed the creation and management of a large international patent portfolio for a consumer products company across multiple product platforms in a wide variety of technology areas, including chemical, mechanical, biotech, and electrical arts.
- Provided freedom-to-operate analyses for a major agricultural chemical company with respect to dozens of agricultural chemicals and related formulations, methods of use, and methods of manufacture.
- Supervised the creation and management of a large international patent portfolio for a global chemical company in the area of environmental catalysts.
- Crafted both offensive and defensive strategies for numerous post-grant patent proceedings worldwide, including European oppositions, invalidity proceedings in South Korea, and Inter Partes review proceedings in the United States.
- Conducted a due diligence review of hundreds of medical device patents involved in multiple acquisitions by a major medical device company.
- Represented a nationally recognized engineering university in the area of nonwoven textile technology, including patenting the inventive activity of an internationally recognized expert in the field.
- Developed a patent strategy for a revolutionary carbon capture power generation cycle for a technology incubator.
- Prepared patent applications directed to oral and pulmonary delivery of various active ingredients including cannabinoids and cannabimimetics.
- Provided patent clearance opinions and analysis related to products that deliver active ingredients (such as cannabinoids) by oral or pulmonary routes.
- Advised companies with respect to patent portfolio strength in context of transactions such as license agreements, mergers, and acquisitions.
Professional & Civic Engagement
- North Carolina Bar Association – Intellectual Property Law Section
- Intellectual Property Owners Association; International Federation of Intellectual Property Attorneys
- American Institute of Chemical Engineers
- Past President, Triangle Intellectual Property Law Association
Thought Leadership
2007 Federal Circuit Annual Review, Aspen Publishers, 2007
Honors & Awards
- Named to IAM Patent 1000, Prosecution, Intellectual Asset Management Magazine, 2020 – Present
- Named to Managing Intellectual Property’s list of IP Stars, 2020 – Present
- Chambers USA Ranked Lawyer, Intellectual Property, North Carolina, 2012 – Present
- Recognized in The Best Lawyers in America (BL Rankings) in the fields of Litigation – Intellectual Property, Patent Law, 2013 – Present
- Selected to the North Carolina Rising Stars list by Super Lawyers (Thomson Reuters) in Intellectual Property, 2009
