Overview

Andre Marais is a registered patent attorney and principal of Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner. Andre is passionate about architecting, building, and managing patent portfolios with his clients. He believes that patent portfolios should be valuable, strategic assets that align with a solid business strategy. Having had the good fortune to work closely with several of Silicon Valley’s prominent companies since their early days, he brings an “in the trenches” perspective to portfolio strategy and growth.

His practice focuses on strategic IP counseling and patent prosecution (US and foreign), patent validity, infringement and clearance analysis and opinions, and IP due diligence work, particularly in networking, software, communications, and electrical/electronic technologies.

Andre is a frequent speaker on intellectual property topics and is a co-author of several intellectual property publications.

Andre has been named in the IAM Strategy 300 by IAM magazine (Law Business Research) (2016-2022) and IAM Patent 1000 by IAM magazine (Law Business Research) (2012-2022).

Education

University of South Africa Faculty of Law
Pretoria, South Africa, 1993, J.D. equivalent

University of Stellenbosch
South Africa, 1990
Bachelor of Engineering (Industrial-Electronics)

Bar Admissions & Associations

Bar Admissions
California
South Africa
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Associations
Member, California State Bar Association
Member, Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Association (SVIPLA)
Member, American Intellectual Property Law Association
Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)

Representative Patents

US5841299
Method and apparatus for selectively receiving write data within a write buffer of a host bridge

US5758166
Method and apparatus for implementing an adiabatic logic family

US5963595
Method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a bit sequence for transmission over pots wiring

US5982741
Method and apparatus for automatically reducing cross-talk between wires coupled to a common network device

US5987516
Method of gathering information pertaining to calls between nodes in a connection-oriented network

US6018742
Constructing a bifurcated database of context-dependent and context-independent data items

US6051029
Method of generating a display for a dynamic simulation model utilizing node and link representations

US6105065
Method of displaying changes in call status between nodes within a connection-oriented network

US6246718
Method and apparatus for decoding a bit sequence for transmission over pots wiring

US6381213
Method and apparatus for detecting collisions on a network

US6510463
Service quality monitoring process

US6523037
Method and system for communicating selected search results between first and second entities over a network

US6678321
Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving a symbol over pots wiring using a multi-cycle waveform

US6684250
Method and apparatus for estimating a geographic location of a networked entity

US6735217
Method and apparatus for detecting collisions on a network using multi-cycle waveform pulses

US6839794
Method and system to map a service level associated with a packet to one of a number of data streams at an interconnect device

US6850961
Method and system to perform a thread switching operation within a multithreaded processor based on detection of a stall condition

US6961858
Method and system to secure content for distribution via a network

US6983237
Method and apparatus for conducting linked simulation operations utilizing a computer-based system model

US6985945
Service quality monitoring process

US6993137
Method and system to securely distribute content via a network

US7026935
Method and apparatus to configure an rfid system to be adaptable to a plurality of environmental conditions

US7440901
Method and system to communicate agricultural product information to a consumer

Engagements & Publications

Freedom-To-Operate and Portfolio Due Diligence (Moderated)
5th Annual IP Counsel Forum (San Jose 2009) – Andre Marais, Francois de Villiers

Blood from the Stone: Extracting Invention Disclosures from Busy Engineers (Moderated)
6th Annual IP Counsel Forum (San Jose 2010) – Andre Marais, Bill Becker, Kirk Goodwin, Eugene Kim

Freedom-to-Operate – Patent Landscape Analysis
Web Cast (June 2009) – Andre Marais, Joseph Wang

Capitalizing on Emerging Markets & Technologies (Moderated)
SVASE (Palo Alto, 2006) – Andre Marais, Deepak Kamra (Canaan Partners), Tony Parisi, Anne-Marie Roussel, Anthony Townsend

Patent Prosecution 101
Law Seminars International’s workshop entitled “Patent Law for Non-Patent Lawyers and Business Professionals” (San Francisco April 6, 2005) – Andre Marais

KSR and its Aftermath
IP Counsel Café (Palo Alto, 2010) – Andre Marais, Jonathan Feuchtwang, Loren McRoss