Mark’s practice focuses on utility and design patent prosecution and counseling for consumer product and medical device clients, as well as post-grant proceedings at the USPTO.
Overview
Mark Rygiel, a director in the Mechanical and Design Practice Group, has nearly twenty years of experience in helping clients develop IP strategies to achieve their business goals. Recently, The Legal 500 recognized Mark as a “Highly Recommended Lawyer” for patent prosecution and post-grant proceedings by clients and peers.
Mark specializes in obtaining utility and design patent protection for cutting edge technologies, with particular focus in the consumer product, vehicle system, medical device, and manufacturing industries. Mark manages large patent portfolios with a comprehensive approach that considers the client’s most important products, business goals, competitor positioning and market conditions. He has extensive experience drafting and prosecuting utility and design patent applications and is recognized for his knowledge in the following technical areas: footwear and athletic apparel, physiological sensor systems, laboratory instrumentation, respiratory and ventilation equipment, catheters and grafts, retinal surgery devices, engines and engine brakes, natural gas distribution systems, location-based services, and e-commerce promotions and related technology. He has presented numerous lectures on effective patent portfolio management strategies, particularly tactics under the America Invents Act of 2011.
His practice also focuses on complex post-grant proceedings at the USPTO. Mark has served as lead or second chair counsel numerous inter partes review and reexamination matters, achieving great success on behalf of large corporations in their most important matters. His practice also focuses on analyzing patents for validity, infringement, and freedom-to-operate issues and providing related opinions of counsel, and counseling on IP due diligence in connection with portfolio acquisitions. He also has successfully negotiated contentious matters in the consumer products and e-commerce marketing spaces through settlements and unique development and licensing agreements.
Mark is a contributing author of Patent Office Litigation, Second Edition, published in 2017. The book provides a fresh and comprehensive exploration of patent office litigation proceedings, including how the proceedings interact with other aspects of patent procurement and enforcement, while delivering practical analysis and advice. This edition is the follow up to the version published in 2012 by Thomson Reuters Westlaw that focused on the contested proceedings that were introduced under the America Invents Act that year. Mark served as a contributing author for the “Design Patents” chapter of the first edition.
Mark is the editor of The Goods on IP, a newsletter focused on best IP practices for consumer product companies.
Prior to joining Sterne Kessler, Mark worked as a business and information technology consultant for a large consulting firm where he designed manufacturing process systems, including a mill operations system for a large steel manufacturing plant. He also interned in the mechanical engineering department of a large respiratory device company. At The George Washington University Law School, Mark was a member of The Environmental Lawyer Law Journal. At the University of Notre Dame, Mark received a Notre Dame Scholar award and several steel industry related engineering scholarships.
Education
- J.D., The George Washington University Law School
- B.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame