MBHIPLAW.COM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Office Operations Manager
Brittany Wage joined the firm in 2013 as a legal assistant after graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with Bachelor of the Arts degrees in English and Public Policy. She is currently working towards obtaining her Masters in Human Resources through Western Carolina University. Outside of work, Brittany enjoys spending time with her husband and their dog, baking, cake decorating, traveling, and distance running.
Christina, a New Jersey native, relocated to North Carolina in 2016. She has a bachelor's degree in Political Science from East Carolina University and an ABA paralegal certification from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She has worked as an intellectual property paralegal for 4 years, and previously worked for the Prosecutor's Office in New Jersey. Outside of work, Christina enjoys spending time with her husband and son, visiting National Parks, hiking, baking, and crafting in her she-shed.
Dan Homiller has over 30 years of experience working with a wide range of wireless communications technologies in a variety of roles. This includes over 20 years as a systems engineer, project manager, engineering manager, product manager, and Deputy Chief Technology Officer designing and developing radio circuits, cellular telephones, and related products. Dan also spent four years in an in-house legal role, participating in intellectual property licensing transactions, strategic patent portfolio development, and patent infringement litigation defense. He draws on this in-house experience with infringement allegations and patent litigation to advise clients on reducing risks posed by third party intellectual property.
Dan's understanding of the client perspective, combined with his extensive engineering background, gives him a distinct edge in patent prosecution in areas of electronic devices, products and systems, as well as software systems. An inventor himself, Mr. Homiller is named on eleven United States patents and has particular expertise in wireless systems. He additionally has extensive experience in preparing and negotiating technology-related agreements including nondisclosure, licensing and technology/software agreements. His knowledge of nearly every phase of high-tech product development, particularly for portable electronic devices, allows him to offer his clients expertise in all phases of the patent life cycle, from concept generation and evaluation, patent preparation and prosecution, to patent and technology licensing.
In addition to preparing and prosecuting hundreds of high-tech patent applications, Dan has taken cases to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
Jessie's broad range of experiences facilitates his abilities to prepare and prosecute patent applications relating to machine learning, transportation, software, and various electrical arts. More specifically, he has direct experience with examining, preparing, and prosecuting applications related to training and validating machine learning models, vehicle communication and control systems, wireless energy transfer systems, and power generation, transmission, and distribution systems.
Jessie worked as a patent examiner for the USPTO examining patent applications directed to inventions involving business methods, machine learning, transportation, and software prior to joining the private sector of patent preparation and prosecution. During his tenure he became well versed on patent laws and USPTO guidelines surrounding subject matter eligibility.
In addition to his work within the realm of patent prosecution and preparation, Jessie has additional private sector experience as a business owner, a product design and test manager, an automotive controls engineer, and a power design engineer. These roles have provided him with opportunities to gain a keen understanding of the importance in developing a robust and valuable intellectual property portfolio through each phase of the intellectual property life cycle process.
Job Titles:
- Member of the BSECE, BSCS
Justin brings to MBH over 15 years' experience in preparing and prosecuting patent applications in the electrical and communication fields. Preferred by patent-savvy companies for his skill in crafting plain-English claims to broadly cover complex inventions, Justin routinely drafts strategic and high-valued patent applications for clients recognized among the world's top patent filers.
Justin's patent work spans all aspects of telecommunications, from physical layer signal processing and RF circuitry to higher-layer software protocols, positioning, and security. With a focus on his clients' business interests in the telecommunications industry and a low-level understanding of the 4G and 5G telecommunication standards, Justin has deep experience in building standard-essential patent portfolios designed to withstand scrutiny in due diligence and litigation.
Kate comes from the small city of Ulan-Ude in the Eastern Siberian part of Russia and is fluent in both English and Russian. She holds a Master's Degree in Teaching/English Linguistics from Buryat State University in Russia and a paralegal certification from George Mason University. Kate has several years of experience as a paralegal, most of which have been in patent and trademark prosecution.
Outside of work, Kate enjoys traveling in the U.S., hiking, hockey, volunteering with children, and reading classic literature.
Kathy Keller earned a BA in Economics from the College of William & Mary and an M.L.S. from University of Maryland/College Park. Kathy has over 10 years of work experience, including as an operations analyst, programmer, and systems analyst for several large banks and a database designer for an Intellectual Property search service provider.
Kathy was born and raised in Long Island, NY, and has spent the last 20 years in Apex, NC. She has a Paralegal Certificate from the University of Colorado and is North Carolina Certified Paralegal. She has worked as an intellectual property paralegal for over 20 years. Outside of work, Kathy enjoys spending time with her daughter and working on her skincare and coaching businesses.
Job Titles:
- Quality Manager
- Docketing and Quality Manager
Laura Wade is MBH's Docket and Quality Manager. She is recognized as a North Carolina Certified Paralegal, and has worked for most of her professional career in the intellectual property field. She has considerable experience in patent and trademark filing and prosecution, both US and foreign. In her current role, she is responsible for docketing, process automation, and risk management. She played an integral role in creating a paperless office for MBH, and authored the firm's Protocol and Procedure Manual, establishing firmwide standards for how filing and prosecution tasks are managed. Laura serves as a member of the Software Innovation Board for Foundation IP, MBH's Intellectual Property Management System.
Dan has over 14 years of experience in patent prosecution, management of worldwide patent portfolios, and conducting intellectual property due diligence studies in connection with mergers and acquisitions.
Dan has experience with a wide range of technologies, including telecommunications, satellite communications, automobiles, MEMS devices, semiconductor manufacturing, online commerce, cloud computing, cloud security, speech communication, flash memory, signal processing, touch screens, electronic advertisement, and multi-robot control.
She has helped clients with patent licenses and patent infringement lawsuits before federal courts, as well as in inter partes reviews before the United States Patent and Trademark Office in areas of semiconductor, MEMS microphone, and pharmaceutical technologies.
Lindsey Shaw attended North Carolina State University majoring in Psychology. She embraced the opportunity to work in intellectual property and patent law because she likes to be challenged. Being part of the MBH team, Lindsey hopes to learn and expand her knowledge in the legal field. Outside of work Lindsey enjoys biking, camping, and spending time with friends and family. Go Pack!
Mark focuses his practice on patent preparation and prosecution, intellectual property contracts and negotiations, and related opinion work. Mark has been deeply involved with semiconductor technology since the mid 90's, first as an engineer, then as an in-house patent professional, and since 2005 as a patent attorney. Having been through the patenting process numerous times as an inventor, Mark has an uncanny ability to connect with inventors in a way that allows him to understand and appreciate subtle nuances of complex inventions that often determine patentability. Mark leverages this deep experience on each project he engages, tirelessly seeking optimal intellectual property protection for his clients.
As a development engineer while at IBM, Mark successfully led the qualification effort for a microprocessor manufactured using an industry-first copper wiring process. He also spent five years as a patent agent and licensing professional within IBM's highly regarded intellectual property organization. In this role, Mark helped to cultivate strategic inventions, chaired several invention review committees, reverse engineered competing products, supported patent and technology licensing efforts, analyzed adversely held patents, and drafted and prosecuted patent applications.
In college, Mark served as a research assistant to Professor Xingwu Wang at Alfred University. In this role, Mark spearheaded a 5-ton thermoelectric heat pump research project sponsored by the U.S. Air Force.
Mike worked as a design engineer and product development manager, specializing in embedded systems design, including hardware, software, and sensor interfacing. Mike worked full time as a registered patent agent while attending law school in the evenings and has over 18 years of experience in IP law.
Mike began his professional career at IBM working in the PowerPC microprocessor design group. There, Mike's responsibilities included custom circuit design and implementation of noise modeling tools. Mike has additional industry experience at American Tower Corporation, which is an industry leading owner and operator of wireless communications towers. In law school, Mike interned at the Global Patent Office of General Electric. There, Mike worked with in-house counsel on a variety of quality control projects.
Job Titles:
- Member of the BS / MS / PhD EE
- Member of the Firm
Scott is a member of the firm, with his practice focused on patent prosecution, licensing, and post-grant proceedings. Prior to joining MBH, Scott spent 6+ years in private practice at a large firm where his clients included individuals, startups, research universities, and major corporations.
Prior to entering private practice, Scott worked for over 20 years in the wireless communications industry, most recently as in-house IP counsel for a major smartphone manufacturer. In this role, he dealt with a wide variety of patent licensing and litigation matters covering a range of technologies including email, messaging, Internet protocols, GPS, WiFi, 3GPP standards, speech/audio/video coding, cameras, memories, displays, and electronic packaging.
Prior to attending law school, Scott held a variety of technical, managerial, and customer-facing roles including senior technologist, engineering director and CTO for North America. Scott also played an instrumental role in the development of wireless industry standards related to speech coding and location-based services, including assisted GPS. He is a named inventor on 58 U.S. patents.
Scott draws upon this diverse background in all aspects of his practice. As an experienced litigator, he drafts and prosecutes technically-detailed patent applications that support a range of claims and maximize the patent's chance of survival against future attacks in litigation, licensing, or due-diligence. As a former CTO, he understands how to help clients translate their business and technology strategies into IP strategies and plans. As an experienced inventor, he understands how to work with innovators to capture the full scope of their inventions in patent applications. And as former in-house counsel, he understands the importance of meeting the client's business objectives with service that is high-quality, timely, and cost-effective.
Tiffany Miller is from Greensboro, North Carolina and lives in Cary, North Carolina with her husband and two children. Tiffany graduated from North Carolina State University with a BA in English: Language, Writing, and Rhetoric, and with an MA in Intercultural Studies from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Outside of work, Tiffany enjoys reading, spending time with family and friends, and rewatching "The Office."