african american patent attorneys

All Rights Reserved. Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.- Toni morrison. Jeanne acts as lead trial counsel in complex patent, trade secret, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition litigation and appeals including USPTO post-grant proceedings in diverse industries ranging from electronics to biotechnology. She is a member (or participant in the activities) of several bar associations (or IP sections thereof), including AIPLA, ABA, INTA, CBA, NBA, CCWC, MCCA, IPLAC, BWLA, and CCBA. (212) 558-4000 125 Broad St New York, NY 10004 CLOSED NOW 4. Customer Service| Those industries include professional, manufacturing and technology. A registered patent attorney, he uses his background in biomedical engineering to prosecute even the most challenging patent applications for medical device technologies. Hollin can help you with patents, trademarks, and infringement issues. For Black Inventors, Road to Owning Patents Paved With Barriers It was great to see a prominent lawyer who looked like me; it materially contributed to my vision of success. Gain access to some of the most knowledgeable and experienced attorneys with our 2 bundle options! Well-versed in all aspects of intellectual property law, Jamaal focuses his practice on preparing and prosecuting patents in the U.S. and abroad. For instance, most patent attorneys prefer to work at private companies over public companies. Admitted to practice in Illinois and the District of Columbia, Ms. Allgaier is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Firms have been pledging to diversify the ranks of equity partners, and general counsel have been pledging to diversity trial teams, for many years. Black History Month - African American Patent Holders - B - ThoughtCo The patented software, LinkLine, is a web-based application for . At OC Patent Lawyer, we serve clients throughout Orange County and Los Angeles County, California from our office in Irvine, California. There are also organizations like the New Voices Foundation, which helps women of color who are entrepreneurs, and the Chicago Inventors Organization, which has worked with a number of Black inventors. Well also continue to have events that arm us with the tools we need to thrive professionally. Lisa Cook, an economics professor at Michigan State, linked declines in African American patenting to race riots and acts of violence, including the decimation of a once-thriving Black business community in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921 when a white racist mob killed hundreds of Black residents. Although formal barriers to the patent system were removed with the abolition of slavery and the passage of the 14th Amendmentwhich guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the U.S.studies show Black inventors continued to face legal and societal obstacles. Segregation laws also made it harder for Blacks to patent their inventions. Dr. Bruce E. Black is a registered patent attorney and specializes in domestic and international patent procurement, client counseling, licensing, and due diligence for innovations in the areas of medical devices, chemistry, physics, materials science, biotechnology, mechanical arts, and software. Black IP Lawyers Who've Made It Look to Grow Ranks Beyond 1.7% Bloomberg Law August 6, 2020 "The rarity of being a Black intellectual property lawyer in the United States hits home for the 1.7% of attorneys who fit that description." Read the article With her electronics background and given her attorney registration to practice before the USPTO, Jeannes broad-based IP experience also includes: counseling related to product configuration trade dress and use of color as a trademark; handling TTAB and UDRP matters; resolving copyright ownership disputes, particularly in the areas of computer software and associated documentation; handling contractual disputes concerning IP rights and the theft or use of IP by a companys former employees, business partners and/or independent contractors; counseling clients on IP holding companies, including how to maximize value from an IP portfolio when certain assets are likely to be the subject of IP litigation; handling cases involving the intersection of trade dress, design patent, and utility patent protection for consumer and industrial products; and conducting discovery abroad throughout Europe, Singapore and Japan. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Allgaier worked as a research associate in the Section of Leukocyte Biology at Baylor College of Medicine. Every case is different and must be judged on its own merits. Sarah E. Goode is thought to be one of the first Black women to receive a patent, in 1885, for inventing a folding bed that could be made into a desk when not in use. The Confederate states allowed slave owners to patent the inventions of their slaves. BS, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Texas Southern University, MS, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Texas SouthernUniversity (Summa CumLaude, With High Honors), JD, University of Illinois Chicago Law School, Top 25 Trial Lawyers The National Trial Lawyers National Women (Specialty Division), Top Women Attorneys in Illinois Rising Stars, Top Attorneys in Illinois Rising Stars 2014-2021, Lifetime Member of Black Women Lawyers Association of Chicago, American Intellectual Property Law Association, National Association of Patent Practitioners, Texas Southern University Distinguished Alumni Award. Patent attorneys are most in-demand in Los Angeles, CA. The underrepresentation of Black inventors, and documented disparities in numbers of women and Hispanic inventors, was acknowledged in a patent office report to Congress last fall. This is perfect for attorneys licensed in multiple jurisdictions or for attorneys that have fulfilled their CLE requirement but need to access resourceful information for their practice areas. Email: info@allgaierpatentsolutions.com, Reviving an abandoned trademark application, THE ROLE LICENSES PLAY IN INCREASING BUSINESS REVENUE. The National Association of Minority & Women Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF), founded in 2001, is a nonprofit trade association comprised of minority and women owned law firms and other interested parties throughout the United States. But overall, the tech industry is uneven when it comes to openness to minority lawyers. Thats hugely important to me, he said. To understand what its like for a black lawyer practicing IP, she said to imagine playing a game of Monopoly where you begin with no money or property and your opponents already have significant amounts of it. The average Patent Attorney is 46 years old. So youre starting from a limited population to begin with, said Azuka Dike, a patent attorney at Banner Witcoff who is a liaison to the American Bar Associations Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession. Jamaal R. Jordan, Attorney - Intellectual Property and - Stinson 1928-2014. Like millions of innovative individuals, MIRIAM E. BENJAMIN (1861-1947) was active in multiple inventive markets, as the patentee of two inventions, and assignee on another. PDF Black or Afro-American Inventors PATENT AND INVENTION INDEX In 2021, women earned 93% of what men earned. You cant just wait until you have some applicants in law school to start diversity efforts, Longsworth said. The most common ethnicity of patent attorneys is White (75.3%), followed by Hispanic or Latino (7.9%), Asian (6.5%) and Black or African American (5.7%). The offices of patent attorneys (all white at the time) were in white-only commercial districts, hindering African American inventors from applying for patents, Cook wrote in an often-cited 2013 study that examined patent activity from 1870 to 1940. A close second is doctoral degree with 42% and rounding it off is master's degree with 11%. Which State Has The Most Patent Attorneys? The paper in question is Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American patents, 1870-1940, . Her trial experience includes bet the company cases with several hundreds of millions at stake, e.g., In re Certain Multi-Stage Fuel Vapor Canister Systems and Activated Carbon Components Thereof (Inv. Well be inviting experts to discuss ways to have meaningful conversations in our respective companies and organizations. For someone like Kirklands Turner, its almost like he has to be not just good, but fantastic, superlative to succeed. A Pioneering Black Woman Patent Attorney - Bowdoin College And yet we still have to prove ourselves, she said. With this subscription you will receive unlimited access to high quality, online, on-demand premium content from well-respected faculty in the legal industry. 1. Copyright 2023 ALM Global, LLC. Jamaal's enthusiasm for intellectual property law and the underlying science of medical device technologies is matched by his strong knowledge and mastery of the challenging patent process. How many patents by African Americans were there in the "golden age of 4075, S. 2281), which would require the patent office to collect demographic information, including gender and race, from patent applicants on a voluntary basis. After presenting, he was approached by an executive of a large technology company. Almost every lawyer goes through a crisis of confidence at some pointoften around four to six years out, when demands of the job start ramping up. However, the two patent applications for her brothers inventions offer direct proof of her standing as a patent practitioner, including her actual signature. A white male professor came rushing down the hall. There are relatively simple steps that firms can take too. Their president, Jefferson Davis, had unsuccessfully tried before to get a U.S. patent on a propeller invented by a man, Benjamin Montgomery, enslaved by his brother, according to research from University of Kentucky law professor Brian Frye. Apart from racism, Black IP attorneys say there are distinct reasons why they make up just 1.7% of their specialty, a figure based on a survey by the American Intellectual Property Law Association. When Griffin polled colleagues and clients, who ranged from small business owners to NASA engineers, on when they learned about patents, and that they had value, most said either in graduate school or after starting their careers. Duane Morris energy attorneys assist clients with advisory, regulatory, litigation, transactional and legislative matters involving environmental, energy and natural resources issues. The executive explained that he had asked his legal department to compile a list of the top black attorneys at big law firms, in the interest of diversifying the companys outside teams. He said he wouldnt be where he is today without having had the opportunity to pitch them. Were still being judged, feared, devalued because of our race. Filed Under: Of Patents and Prizes, Women in the Republic of Enterprise Tagged With: diversity, intellectual property, patents, women, The Mystery of the Missing Minority Millionairess, A Halloween Debate: Diversity and Exclusion, Who was the First U.S. Economics Professor? Richard E.S. The list did not include any patent litigators. Even before she became the famous author we know today, she was already making history: At just 16 years old, she became the first black female streetcar conductor in San . The technical knowledge of handling a trial, and the marketability of that knowledgethat could never be taken from me. He was born in Canada but raised in Michigan, before being sent to study in Scotland at age 15. Miriam Benjamin later worked in Edgars prosperous general law practice, and the 1920 census lists her occupation as a patent attorney. She is also frequently quoted by publications such as Law360, Managing Intellectual Property, BNAs Patent Trademark & Copyright Journal, and The Wall Street Journal. But if they dont open the pool to see whats out there, they dont know what theyre missing., Turner notes that the underrepresentation of black attorneys is far from a new issue. For more information, please see our Cookie Policy. Owning patents, and other intellectual property, can help people earn money from their inventions. For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [emailprotected], Shearman and Hogan Lovells Call Off Merger Talks, Early Reports: 2023 Am Law 200 Financials, Beyond Excess Capacity, Pooled Services and Automation Expedite Staff Layoffs, Dozens of Law Firms Grew Their Equity Partner Tier, Even as Profits and Demand Plummeted. Government has tried to take some steps, but progress has been slow. Other attorneys echoed the importance of mentorship, and helping inventors build social networks.