Tim Grathwol is a registered patent attorney and a Principal at Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner. Tim was also an adjunct professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law for 13 years, where he taught a semester long third year course on patent application preparation and prosecution before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
His practice includes U.S. and international patent procurement in mechanical, aerospace, and computer technologies, as well as infringement and validity counseling, freedom-to-operate studies, due diligence, and portfolio management. Tim has experience with heating and cooling systems, including liquid desiccant and membrane energy exchangers, aircraft and industrial power gas turbine engines, implantable medical devices including cardiac and neuro stimulation, drug infusion devices, and helical fixation for endovascular grafts and stent grafts, and a variety of software, computing and networking technologies.
Tim has been involved in IP due diligence to support mergers and asset acquisitions in the areas of home security, home automation, and personal emergency response systems (PERS), and, more generally, technologies related to the Internet of Things (IoT). Additionally, after representing a start-up medical device client for a number of years, Tim counseled the client through an IP due diligence to support sale of the company to a major medical device company, the diligence culminating in the sale of the start-up for a very significant amount.
Tim also has experience managing and counseling a large client in an effort to consolidate outside IP representation with a limited number of outside firms and building a comprehensive in-house IP management strategy. This effort included managing a large file transfer from previous firms, reviewing and mitigating latent risks in the transferred portfolios, and building processes to manage and execute ongoing patent procurement, international filing strategies, annuity and maintenance fee review and management, and integration of IP procurement and infringement risk review into product development processes.
Tim graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering. While completing his undergraduate studies, Tim worked as an intern developing automation equipment at a plastic injection molding company and conducted research with Prof. Ernst Eckert modeling cooling effects on film cooled turbine blades. Before attending law school, he worked for several enterprise software companies, including Parametric Technology Corporation, the developer of the Pro/Engineer CAD/CAM/CAE software applications.
Tim received his Juris Doctor (magna cum laude) from William Mitchell College of Law in 2006.