Elman Technology Law, P.C. PATENT, TRADEMARK, COPYRIGHT & INTERNET LAW P.O. Box 209 Swarthmore, PA 19081-0209 U.S.A. Phone: (610) 892-9942       eFax: (925) 226-4995 Media Office: 12 Veterans Square, 1st Floor Left,  Media, PA 19063 U.S.A.

 STRATEGIC LAWYERING. CULTIVATING INNOVATION. ^®

Our firm, Elman Technology Law, P.C., serves the legal needs of clients in intellectual property and Internet-related business matters. We believe that our extensive experience in patent, trademark and other aspects of the law related to technology enables us to provide clients with the educated guidance needed to develop an innovation from concept stage through realization in the marketplace. As a pioneer in cyberspace, we assist clients desiring to conduct business via the Internet.

Our services include the following:

• Protecting intellectual property
• Patents
• Trademarks
• Copyrights
• Trade secrets
• Unfair competition
• Emerging forms of protection, including Internet domain names
• Assisting companies implementing computer and Internet-related technologies
• Legal issues in the deployment of electronic commerce technologies
• Patenting software and methods of doing business
• Negotiating and consummating technology-related business transactions
• Licenses, assignments and joint research projects
• Ownership of technology by employees and independent contractors
• Licensing of multimedia and online publication rights
• Performing intellectual property audits for management, investors and buyers
• Facilitating resolution of technology and business disputes
• Counseling and litigation on antitrust and regulatory issues

Our clients include developers and providers of computer and information technology, including content and applications for the Internet, companies involved in electronic commerce and in bioinformatics, companies developing new products in the biotechnology and chemical industries, and other domestic and foreign businesses and individuals that we assist in intellectual property protection, contract negotiation and dispute resolution. Often we collaborate with a client's general counsel, whether in-house or in a law firm, to add to the team our unique expertise and experienced judgment. In other instances we work with patent counsel of a foreign company to provide representation before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

PERSONAL ATTENTION

A fundamental value at Elman Technology Law, P.C. is the importance of frequent and direct communication between the client and our firm. Our attorneys play an integral role in the development of our clients' projects, providing ongoing legal support and advice. To facilitate the timely preparation of documents and correspondence, we use computers, and we were one of the first law firms to communicate with clients by electronic mail. We have implemented Internet technology for videoconferencing with clients to enhance communication regardless of distance. Our firm is a charter partner of the international enterprise providing Internet Business Law Services (iBLS) and is a charter member of the Eastern Technology Council.

PROFESSIONAL PROFILES

We take pride in the extensive technological and business knowledge that our professionals bring to the service of our clients. Advanced scientific training, hands-on experience in computer programming, authorship in legal and scientific journals, and experience within government agencies and multinational companies, provide our firm's professionals with expanded insight into opportunities for our clients and the laws that affect them.

GERRY J. ELMAN, Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

M.P. MOON, Ph.D., Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

SCOTT R. POWELL, Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

JAHAN ARA, Ph.D., Patent Agent

YONGMEI LI, Ph.D., Science Advisor

SANDRA G. KUSHNER, Administrative Assistant & Paralegal

KATHY A. DIGGINS, Administrative Assistant & Paralegal Assistant

GERRY J. ELMAN
Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

Gerry Elman holds a B.S. from the University of Chicago, and an M.S. in Chemistry from Stanford University, in addition to his J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law. He has also completed business management, foreign language and additional law courses at Temple University, where he subsequently developed and taught a course for lawyers in computer law.

With 40 years of varied experience as a practicing attorney, he is also a widely published author on technology and the law. He was a pioneer in developing a legal practice relating to biotechnology, as well as one of the first attorneys to work with computers and online information technology. He has been accorded the highest rating, AV, in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory and he has a rating of  “10.0/10 Superb” on the Avvo.com website.

After law school and working in a New York City patent law firm, for four years Gerry practiced as an in-house patent attorney for Rohm and Haas Company, a multinational chemical company. Then, as a Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, he conducted litigation on behalf of the Commonwealth, primarily involving antitrust or utility regulation. Later, as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, he participated in civil and criminal investigations and complex litigation, including a trial of five pharmaceutical companies accused of fraud on the U.S. Patent Office.

He returned to private practice in 1982. At the beginning of that year, Gerry founded the legal journal Biotechnology Law Report along with publisher Mary Ann Liebert. Since then he has continuously served as its editor-in-chief. He has forged an alliance with the California Western School of Law in San Diego, where Professor Robert Bohrer and a team of his law students edit and contribute scholarly articles for the journal.

Since the early days of 1982, Gerry has been an avid advocate of computer-mediated communication, which has now become commonplace on the Internet. Via computer, he has taught intellectual property management on the University of Phoenix online campus. He has been an active member of the Global CyberLaw Network and the International Technology Law Association. From 1994 to 1999 he served as the sysop for intellectual property/legal matters in the Ideas, Inventions & Innovations Forum, on CompuServe.

Gerry also serves on the advisory board of The Licensing Journal.  While on the advisory board of the Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal, he mentored a student at Santa Clara Law School writing an article on quarantine law that was published in the Spring 2002 issue of the Journal. He has been an advisor on biotechnology monographs for the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) and a member of the editorial boards of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law and The Trademark Reporter. He co-authored a chapter on trademark law for L.J. Kutten's law treatise, COMPUTER SOFTWARE: PROTECTION/LIABILITY/LAW/FORMS.

Gerry participates in a roundtable of Vistage Trusted Advisors. As an active member of the Licensing Executives Society, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the DelCo IP Forum, Gerry helps clients to gain the maximum value through licensing and enforcing their intellectual property rights. He has arbitrated multi-million-dollar disputes for the American Arbitration Association, has served as an expert witness in patent law, and has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in litigation over intellectual property rights. In one such case, he successfully defended the Seven-Up Company against an accusation of copyright infringement that involved a poster featuring a depiction of Santa Claus, 1990 U.S. Dist. Lexis 5203 (E.D. Pa.), appeal dismissed 919 F.2d 730 (3d Cir.).

Gerry is a charter member of the Benjamin Franklin American Inn of Court, composed of intellectual property practitioners in Greater Philadelphia. As one of the members at the "master" level of experience, he acts as a resource to help train others.  He served for two years as its webmaster and on its Board of Governors. 

Gerry chaired the Patent Legislation/Patent and Trademark Office Coordination Committee of the Philadelphia Intellectual Property Law Association from 2003 to 2006, during a time of sweeping changes in regulations and the prospect of “patent reform” on the lips of Congress.

Gerry is profiled in various biographical references, including each edition of WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA since 1988.

As an invited Nominator, Gerry attended the World Technology Summit in London in July 2001 and is now a Member of the World Technology Network. He participated in the World Technology Summit in New York City July 2002 as chair of their Summit-within-the-Summit for Law, and in the World Technology Summit in San Francisco in June 2003.

Gerry organized and chaired a program on Biotechnology and the Bioterrorism Dilemma at Villanova University on January 21, 2002, sponsored by the Philadelphia area alumni clubs of Stanford and The University of Chicago. He serves as webmaster and a member of the board of the Stanford Club of Philadelphia. Gerry delivered a presentation in April 2002 on the federal response to bioterrorism at the BioDefense Mobilization Conference in Seattle.

Gerry represents clients for a variety of intellectual property and business matters. These frequently include the preparation and prosecution of patents, the evaluation of adversely held patents, the registration of trademarks and proprietary names, the licensing of intellectual property rights, the resolution of disputes through mediation, arbitration, and if necessary, litigation, the conduct of intellectual property audits, and related technology law and trade regulation issues.  Gerry is also available to serve as a neutral in mediation and arbitration proceedings involving intellectual property or technology law issues.

Click here to view Gerry Elman's Powerpoint slideshow on Avoiding Problems Arising from Licensing with Troubled Companies: Issues Related to the Interface Between Intellectual Property Law and Involvency Law presented in May 2006 and June 2007 at a Law Seminars International workshop on Mastering Complex Intellectual Property Licensing.

 

Click here to view Gerry's slideshow on The Antitrust-Patent Interface (with a Virtual Walking Tour in Historic Philadelphia) presented in May 2005 at a Law Seminars International workshop on Complex Intellectual Property Licensing.

Click here to view Gerry's slideshow on The Electronic Handshake presented at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute's TRANSACT 1999, a continuing legal education program on electronic commerce. September 30, 1999, Philadelphia Bar Education Center. The slides include numerous hyperlinks to references; be sure to click on the images as well as the underlined text. Gerry was a member of the panel presenting an introductory discussion entitled Anatomy of an Electronic Transaction. An article in the December 6, 1999, issue of the Philadelphia Business Journal names Gerry as one of the "noted lawyers" on the Philadelphia Bar Association's cyberlaw and electronic commerce committee.

Gerry delivered a presentation at Temple Law School on April 11, 1997. His slides on Biotechnology and Computer Software: The Patent System Responds to Exploding Technologies are viewable online.

Gerry was also a speaker at the first conference on Mammalian Cloning, held in Arlington, VA on June 27, 1997. His presentation is also available online here.

He was quoted on the subject of biotechnology patenting in the July 6, 1998 issue of The Scientist.  He was also quoted on the federal antitrust trial against Microsoft Corporation in the October 26, 1998 issue of Information Week .

Gerry was quoted in the January 1, 2000 issue of Genetic Engineering News on the antitrust implications of the federal district court holding that the patent for Taq polymerase used in the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) system was obtained by fraud on the Patent Office. And he has been quoted on the subject of intellectual property in the books Working from Home by Paul Edwards and The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book by Janet Attard.

On March 1, 2006 and then on November 21, 2007, Gerry was interviewed on the cable tv show Money Matters.  Click here to view the 2006 interview, which runs from minute 5 to minute 20.  Click here to view the 2007 interview, which starts at minute 9 into the video clip.

 

On August 30, 2007, Gerry was quoted in the New York Times on turmoil in the U.S. patent system, as well as a similar article in the International Herald Tribune.  In greater detail, Gerry responded to an inquiry by the Women’s Bioethics Blog that is posted HERE.  Gerry was also quoted by the iBLS Internet Law News Portal on patent developments post KSR v. Teleflex.  Click HERE to view it.

 

Visit Gerry’s page on Facebook to see a photo of him with his grandson in Hawaii born February 5, 2008.

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