Professional Experience
I am a registered patent attorney, which means I am registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  I am presently a parner at Lorenz & Kopf, LLP, a mid-sized intellectual property law firm located in Scottsdale, Arizona and Munich, Germany.  I have been with this firm since January of 2003.  Before this, I worked at a large national firm in Phoenix (Quarles & Brady LLP) (2000-2002), and before that, at two prominent intellectual property firms in Washington, D.C (Rader, Fishman & Grauer; Fitzpatrick, Cella, Harper & Scinto) (1999-2000) while finishing law school.

I have experience in all areas of intellectual property law, including rendering patentability, clearance, non-infringement and invalidity opinions; providing litigation support; and preparing and prosecuting patent applications, both domestic and foreign, in various technologies, such as aerospace, electrical, mechanical, software, nuclear, semiconductor, cryptographic, and e-commerce technologies.  I have filed numerous appeals and have presented oral arguments before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.

Prior to my legal career, I was a patent examiner with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1995-1998), and began attending law school at night.  During my time as a patent examiner, I examined patent applications in myriad technologies including measuring and testing of physical phenomena, analog and digital circuitry, semiconductor manufacturing, nuclear power generation, e-commerce, and cryptography.

I am also a former U.S. Navy officer and enlisted man.  During my enlistment period (1980-1986), I served on board the USS PERMIT (SSN-594), a nuclear powered attack submarine, as both a nuclear reactor operator and electronics technician.  After receiving my electrical engineering degree from Arizona State University, I accepted a commission as a naval officer, and worked as an engineer at the Division of Naval Reactors in Washington, D.C.  While there, I worked on the design of instrumentation and controls systems for the navy’s shipboard and land-based nuclear power plants, and as a nuclear safety analyst (1990-1995).

I authored the article entitled, “When Law, Science, and Technology Worlds Collide: Copyright Issues on the Internet,” published at 81 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc’y. 81 (1999).

Education
J.D., cum laude, George Mason University, 2000

M.S. (equivalent), Nuclear Engineering, Bettis Reactor Engineering School, 1991

B.S., magna cum laude, Electrical Engineering, Arizona State University, 1989

 Admissions to Practice
Supreme Court of Arizona, 2000

U.S. District Court, District of Arizona, 2002

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 2000

Professional Memberships
State Bar of Arizona

American Intellectual Property Law Association

Professional Engineer (inactive), Virginia