Robert Z. Cashman

[From 2007] The ability to invalidate a patent has given me the skill in to properly draft a valid one. I am a Patent Attorney currently working for a law firm hired by the USPTO to examine granted patents where the applicant is attempting to secure patent protection under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT); I am seeking employment as a patent attorney to prosecute patents with a firm.  I am proficient at validity searches where I find prior art which render the patents obvious and unenforceable, and my opinion letters have been used by examiners to reject patents in the chemical arts (including coatings for drugs), in the synthetic organic arts (including new drugs affecting the central nervous system), in the mechanical arts (including pumps of various types and valves), and in business method patents of varied kinds. My patent law experience consists of a supervised patent prosecution clerkship at Scully, Scott, Murphy & Presser through the law school's competitive Business & Technology Clinic, and a summer at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China where I learned rules for foreign patent prosecution through the PCT. My litigation experience includes a summary judgment hearing in a patent infringement suit where the government was a joint defendant. I supplied counsel with sufficient legal research on laches and patent marking statutes to defeat the claims against our client. In another matter, I researched the issue of treble damages and attorney's fees and surprised the attorneys with a shield strategy which they used to prevent their client from paying attorney's fees in the case that their client lost the infringement suit. Upon considering me further, you will find although my technical studies to date have been centered around the synthetic organic and chemical arts, I will be pursuing an electrical engineering degree through Stony Brook University's Bachelor of Electrical Engineering online program and I hope to focus my future patent prosecution around helping inventors design, protect protocols and test procedures, and patent new applications of electrical theory. I am interested in teaming up with a firm who will espouse my abilities, and who will want me to channel my skills into the firm's need for patent attorneys while I develop my electrical engineering expertise. On the one hand, I am skilled in patent claim drafting and in distinguishing current applications from the prior art, and on the other hand, with the upcoming electrical engineering degree, I am a work in progress. If you feel that someone with practiced claim drafting skills and experience in searching prior art in varied classes may be of benefit to your firm, then I would be interested in interviewing. Sincerely, Robert Z. Cashman