Eric focuses on prosecuting and managing patents. He also advises clients on how to stop (or prevent) infringement of their intellectual property.
Eric is an officer and shareholder in Fredrikson & Byron’s Intellectual Property and Litigation Groups. He does a great deal of work helping clients avoid the patents of competitors. When competitors have invalid patents, Eric works with litigators to attack those patents in court or, when appropriate, he asks the Patent Office to reconsider the validity of the patents by initiating Reexaminations or Reviews.
Eric is highly skilled in a wide range of mechanical arts. For example, he has done patent work on press brake tools, turret press tools, sheet metal stamping, extrusion equipment, polymer filtering, floor cleaning vehicles, carpet extractors, vacuums, wheel bearings and other bearing assemblies, agricultural equipment, HVAC components and systems, assembly line technology, automation equipment, window products, privacy glazing products, glass making and other glass technology, medical device technology, fire-fighting equipment, log building technology, and consumer products.
Eric has worked extensively on a variety of coating technologies, particularly in connection with thin films and vacuum deposition methods. Examples include glass coatings, such as low-emissivity, solar-control, hydrophilic or photocatalytic coatings; switchable privacy glass coatings; coatings for electrolysis anodes; photovoltaic coatings; gemstone coatings; sputter deposition; ion beam processes; flash-lamp annealing; tempering; and other heat treatments. Eric has also worked on numerous inventions involving multi-layer structures, such as laminates (e.g., safety glass), polymer extrusions, lithophanes and various glazing technologies.
Eric also has particular interest in aerospace technology, especially the mechanical components used in this field, as well as products in which flow characteristics are important. He has worked on technologies involving aircraft design, floats for amphibious airplanes, aircraft landing safety warning systems, fire suppression aircraft technology, and aircraft bearing systems.
