Biography

Joe is a registered U.S. Patent Attorney and a shareholder with the firm. He is experienced in all areas of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law, as well as licensing and franchising. Joe represents a wide range of clients in the local, regional and national manufacturing and service sectors and helps those clients build fences around their intellectual property, allowing them to maintain technological and market advantages over their competitors throughout the world and in cyberspace.

His background and experience involves assisting clients with intellectual property matters relating (generally) to electrical, mechanical and electromechanical technologies and (specifically) to scientific and medical devices, electrical and electronic devices, metal ionization methods and devices, energy conservation techniques, automated machining, computer software and computer peripherals, as well as innovative business methods, trademarks and service marks. Joe also published his first fiction novel “Seamless”, a Midwestern ghost story that explores the unsettling possibility of interdimensional contact.

Representative Clients

• Individual Inventors, Innovators and Entrepreneurs
• Physicians, Medical Groups and Healthcare Providers
• Business Owners
• Software Developers
• Manufacturing Companies
• Service Providers

Notable Representations

IP Audits and Training Joe has assisted clients with conducting on-site intellectual property audits and training seminars to raise client awareness as to the existence of intellectual property assets and to initiate steps to be taken by the client to develop intellectual property strategies to protect those assets, all of which affects the client’s “bottom line.”

Non-infringement Analyses Joe has experience assisting clients in preparing non-infringement analyses and written opinions where the clients have been accused of patent or other intellectual property infringement. He has assisted and advised our litigation team in developing strategies to assert and/or defend intellectual property infringement claims.

Prevention of IP Infringement Claims Joe has assisted any number of clients who desire to enter the marketplace with a new product and who want to have “clearance” of such product by analysis and written opinion of counsel to minimize exposure against potentially adverse intellectual property infringement claims.

Leadership

Professional Activities

Admitted, United States Patent and Trademark Office

Admitted, United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

Admitted, United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Admitted, United States District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin

Member, State Bar of Wisconsin

Former Member, Milwaukee Bar Association

Member, American Bar Association (ABA)

Member, ABA Forum on Franchising

Member, American Intellectual Property Lawyers Association (AIPLA)

Member, Wisconsin Intellectual Property Lawyers Association (WIPLA)

Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Member, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society

Member, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society

Member, IEEE Magnetics Society

Community Involvement

Past President of Council, Christ Church, UCC

Published Articles / Presentations

Co-Author, 3rd edition of Trade Marks USA: Trends and Developments 2019, Chambers Global Practice Guide

Intellectual Property for the Medical Professional (2013)

Wisconsin Lawyer Magazine Review: Intellectual Property for the Medical Professional

Trademarks Section of The Wisconsin Business Advisor Series, Vol. 5 Intellectual Property

Seamless (Fiction Novel 2011)

Using Expired Patent Numbers with Your Products Could Lead to Devastating Financial Losses

Are Your Marks Protected?

If One Of Your Employees Invents Something, Who Owns What?

What Aspects Of Intellectual Property Should Entrepreneurs Consider When Starting A New Business Or Expanding An Ongoing Business?

Are You Keeping Your Business Secrets To Yourself?

So You Think You Have A Patentable Idea - Now What?

I Paid For That Software To Be Developed, So Why Don't I Own It?

What Is Software Licensing?

So Who Really Owns The Design And Design Documents For Your Construction Project?

Thinking About Becoming a Franchisee?

Guest Lecturer, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Continuing Education's Entrepreneur Training Program; Milwaukee Area Technical College Business Law Course; and Inventors and Entrepreneurs Forum of Greater Milwaukee