von Briesen & Roper, s.c.

Tom is a Shareholder and Chairs the Patents and Intellectual Property Sections. An experienced attorney most active in patent prosecution, portfolio management and providing opinions of counsel, Tom drafts and prosecutes U.S. and foreign patent applications; renders non-infringement, validity, patentability and inventorship opinions; drafts and interprets license, indemnification, employment and non-complete agreements; prepares and prosecutes trademark and copyright registrations; and counsels clients on a range of intellectual property issues including portfolio management, patent strategy, and design-around efforts. 

Since 1995, Tom has been practicing in the mechanical and electro-mechanical arts, with significant experience in engines, transmissions, medical devices, automotive components, aerospace components, earth-moving equipment, wind turbines, elevators, consumer products, HVAC equipment, valves, pumps, sporting goods, robotics, and automation. Well versed in the reissue, re-examination, examiner interview and appeal processes of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Tom works with clients ranging in size from large global corporations to small locally-owned businesses and independent inventors in not only maximizing the protection of their ideas, but taking advantage of their economic value as well.

Before joining von Briesen, Tom founded and managed an intellectual property firm in Chicago for fifteen years, and has practiced patent law for twenty-five years in total. Prior to his career as a patent attorney, Tom was an engineer with Rockwell Automation working within its motor, drive and programmable logic controller division.