Todd’s previous experience as a senior software engineer lends to his patent prosecution and inter partes review practice across a wide range of technologies.
Overview
Todd C. Thurheimer is an associate in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice Group. His practice currently focuses on both inter partes review proceedings at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and patent prosecution before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Todd worked for many years as a senior software engineer with a management consulting firm designing and implementing online software solutions. His practice fuses this hard technological experience with legal expertise, knowledge, and clear and concise communication to support clients’ business and technical needs.
Todd has extensive experience practicing in contested proceedings before the PTAB challenging and defending already-issued patents. This experience includes: drafting substantive papers, strategizing legal arguments, assisting technical experts, taking and defending expert depositions, and preparing for oral hearings. He also has experience supporting a variety of clients in U.S. district court litigation.
Todd has prosecuted hundreds of patent applications across a range of technologies including networking, databases, computer graphics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, big-data integration, high-frequency electronics, vector processing, blockchain, cutting-edge user interfaces, internet-of-things devices, financial systems, health care platforms, integration platforms, software development tools, and consumer devices.
Prior to joining Sterne Kessler, Todd clerked at the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. He graduated summa cum laude from Suffolk University Law School, receiving an Intellectual Property Law Concentration with Distinction and serving as a staff member on the Journal of High Technology Law. Todd has experience with a wide variety of programming languages, especially Perl, but also C/C++, Java, Javascript, jQuery, AngularJS, XML, HTML, SQL, etc.
Technical Publications
- “Crimson Chaos: Sports Team Trademarks in Artwork and the Functionality Doctrine”, Journal of International Commercial Law and Technology, 2011.
- “Second Chance for Secondary Considerations: Hiding the ‘Novelty Ball’,” Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, Oct. 2017 (co-author).
Education
- J.D., Intellectual Property Law Concentration with Distinction, Suffolk University Law School, summa cum laude
- B.S., Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, magna cum laude