Professional Experience
An Associate with Kinney & Lange since 2010, and a Shareholder since 2018, Erik Wright specializes in patent preparation, prosecution, and risk management. More generally, Erik advises clients on the efficient use of intellectual property tools such patents, trade secrets, trademarks, and copyrights.
Erik has prepared, filed, and prosecuted hundreds of patent applications to allowance, including US and international applications.He supervises a team of intellectual property attorneys at Kinney & Lange, and directs the prosecution of patent families in other countries. Erik has experience with a wide range of technical subject matter, including engines, motors, and generators, semiconductor structures and circuit fabrication, additive manufacturing, medical devices, network architecture, software (including control systems and artificial intelligence), optics, and sensor/transducer systems.
In addition to his patent prosecution work, Erik conducts and manages large-scale patentability and freedom-to-operate studies, advising clients on intellectual property strategies and risks. He has prepared numerous opinions of counsel regarding product infringement or non-infringement, enforceability, and validity, and has assisted with engineering design-around strategies for patent infringement risk mitigation.
Erik holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in physics. Outside of intellectual property, Erik’s studies have focused on science pedagogy, chaotic system mechanics, international law, and criminal sentencing reform. In his free time, Erik enjoys reading, games, swimming, and practicing his rusty Swedish and Japanese.
Publications
- Patent Freedom to Operate Searches, Opinions, Techniques, and Studies, (ABA, 2017), co-author
- Beyond the Looking Glass: Patent-Eligible Subject Matter After Alice and Mayo, Intellectual Property Today, Vol. 21, No. 11 (November 2014)
- Overview of Intellectual Property for Business Lawyers, Kinney & Lange, P.A. (annual)
- Intellectual Property Law for Business Lawyers, Kinney & Lange, P.A. (annual)
Blog PostsSee All
Selected Presentations
- Intellectual Property: Advanced Topics for Businesses in a Changing Legal Landscape - " Medtronic v. Boston Scientific" (2014)
Representative Matters
- Erik has prepared, prosecuted and supervised hundreds of patent applications, including PCT and foreign counterparts, on a variety of technologies and on behalf of multi-national corporations, medium-sized businesses, small businesses and individual inventors
- Erik has performed patent clearance studies for billion-dollar product lines, advised client regarding risk management and patent avoidance strategies, and prepared associated opinions of counsel