Biography
Brian Bell’s practice involves procuring patents and advising clients on how to build and leverage patent portfolios to protect client investments in research and development. He has successfully obtained hundreds of patents for clients from single inventors to multinational corporations, and has extensive knowledge of prosecution strategies at the USPTO. Brian uses his significant experience as an electrical engineer to inform his application drafting and to work with Examiners to successfully advance the prosecution of patent applications. Brian provides inventors and counsel with robust and practical solutions to achieve their IP goals. He advises clients on matters including patentability searches, patentability opinions, and infringement opinions.
Brian has experience with many electrical and mechanical technologies, including artificial intelligence, displays, semiconductors, image processing, computer hardware, consumer electronics, energy control systems, manufacturing, printing, medical devices, automotive, medical imaging, bioinformatics, mobile applications, and cryptography.
Prior to joining BoMc, Brian was an attorney at an intellectual property law firm in Washington, DC. While pursuing his electrical engineering degree, Brian worked with a manufacturer of air compressors, generators, and pressure washers to design and test new products. After graduation, he spent over seven years working as an electrical engineer with a systems integrator to provide solutions for market leaders in automotive and food industries. His work required many aspects of software programming and hardware design, and designing systems for collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. Consequently, he has extensive first-hand experience with many mechanical and electrical devices, in several programming languages, and in database and user interface design. As an engineer, Brian led small and large projects from the initial design phase through the installation and final commissioning of controls systems.
Brian spent his second and third years of law school working part time at the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management (OTM), where he conducted interviews with graduate students and professors to understand the essence of their inventions and to explain the patenting process. He also worked closely with the patent coordination team at the OTM to improve the quality and efficiency of OTM analyst prior art searches, and assisted in marketing efforts.
Highlights
- Prosecuted over 600 patent applications to allowance.
- Worked closely with a team at a multinational corporation to transition IP as a division was spun off into a new company.
- Provided guidance to a large corporation to better coordinate simultaneous prosecution in multiple countries.
- Regularly held discussions with counsel at one of the top patent filers in the world that resulted in broader strategy changes in patent prosecution.
Bar Admissions
- District of Columbia
- U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Education
- University of Illinois College of Law, J.D., May 2010
- Tennessee Technological University, B.S., Electrical Engineering, May 2000
Publications
- Author. “USPTO Launches Cancer Moonshot Expedited Examination Pilot Program,” BoMc Blog, February 22, 2023.
- Author. “Farewell Public PAIR, and Happy Retirement,” BoMc Blog, July 14, 2022.
- Author. “USPTO Launches New Patent Public Search Tool,” BoMc Blog, February 7, 2022.