North Metro Patents Lawyers

After over ten years working at large and mid-size patent-specialty and general practice law firms, Charlena Thorpe formed her own practice to provide quality patent law and related IP services to clients in a responsive, flexible, and cost-effective manner. Charlena Thorpe has extensive patent drafting, patent procurement, and patent litigation experience. Charlena also has significant experience preparing opinions on matters such as patentability, infringement, validity, and essentiality. Charlena Thorpe's legal education and legal experience is complemented with an exceptional technical education at a top-ranked engineering school and industry experience at Fortune 500 companies and nationally-recognized research institutions.

I obtained a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Masters in business administration at the Florida Institute of Technology. I studied law at New England Law in Boston, graduating in 1989.

Previously I have been employed by top Fortune 500 companies (Raytheon Company, Scientific-Atlanta (Currently Cisco), Intel Corporation, and RealNetworks) as an in-house corporate patent and trademark attorney and represented other major companies (Microsoft, IBM, GE, Lenovo, Amazon, HP, Infineon and Boeing) as an outside patent counsel. In April of 2006, I opened my own private practice with a focus on intellectual property services.

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Cortney has 20 years of litigation experience, serving as lead counsel in over 120 patent-infringement litigations. He also represents clients in proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (e.g., IPR proceedings) and in appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. • S.M.R Innovations v. Apple (W.D. Tex.), Motorola (D. Del.), LG, and Samsung (E.D. Tex.): Lead counsel in cases involving patents for routing multimedia between electronic devices. • POWERbahn (N.D. Ga.): Represented technology innovator in asserting patents related to exercise equipment that better simulated real-life conditions. Claims resolved after district court denied Defendants’ motions for summary...

Professional History:
> 2005-present: Owner, Bockhop Intellectual Property Law, LLC
> 2002-2005: Partner, Arnall Golden Gregory LLP
> 2000-2002: Founding Partner, Bockhop & Reich, LLP
> 1994-2000: Associate, Needle & Rosenberg, PC
> 1988-1991: IBM - Design Engineer (Designed arithmetic logic circuits used in CPU of AS/400 computer)
> 1980-1985: U.S. Naval Officer - Electrical Officer USS Nicholson (DD 982)
Education:
> J.D., University of Georgia School of Law, 1994
> M.S., Electrical and Computer Engineering, The University of Iowa, 1988 Research and Thesis: Switching Properties of Non-Linear Optical Interface; Eta Kappa Nu Electrical Engineering Honors Society
> B.S., General Science, The University of Iowa, 1980
> US Navy Gas...

Bill Needle is a registered patent attorney who has been exclusively practicing all aspects of Intellectual Property law for 42 years. Mr. Needle began his legal career at the first IP boutique firm in Atlanta (Newton, Hopkins & Orsmby) from 1970-1983. He then founded the IP boutique Needle & Rosenberg which, in 2008, merged into Ballard Spahr LLP. He served as the first Chair of Ballard Spahr's Intellectual Property Department until July 1, 2012 and remains a partner in the firm. His litigation experience includes being counsel in the copyright and trademark litigation for the CABBAGE PATCH KIDS(R)...

Mr. Cirino, originally a mechanical engineer, began his career working for a major automaker. He returned to school to pursue a legal education. After successfully completing law school, Mr. Cirino worked in both public service prosecuting patent applications for university professors and at a major law firm. Mr. Cirino has hands-on experience prosecuting patents and securing intellectual property rights across a wide range of technical disciplines. He prides himself on taking a personal interest in his client’s goals, and his ability to quickly understand new inventions.

Thomas is a registered patent attorney whose practice is focused exclusively on intellectual property law. His practice includes: patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, patent prosecution, patent portfolio management, patent infringement, patent litigation, patent licensing, trademark registration, trademark infringement, trademark litigation, copyright registration, copyright litigation, intellectual property licensing, and other intellectual property matters.