Patent Attorney & Attorney at Law

Gerry 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 42 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 designated AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated, in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory accessible online at martindale.com, and he has a rating of 10.0/10 Superb on the Avvo.com website.

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.

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, now a division of Dow. 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 chairs the Patent Legislation/Patent and Trademark Office Coordination Committee of the Philadelphia Intellectual Property Law Association during a time of sweeping changes in regulations and the prospect of “patent reform” on the lips of Congress. He is also an active participant in American Innovators for Patent Reform.

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. In July 2009 Gerry presented a talk on Where’s My Free Legal Advice? at the World Technology Summit in New York City.

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.

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.

Gerry Elman on the Web

• Become a Fan of Elman Technology Law on FaceBook
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• View Gerry’s profile and rating of 10.0/Superb on Avvo, including 4 reviews by clients and 2 endorsements by other attorneys.  Gerry’s public answers to legal questions on Avvo are presented on the Gerry’s Public Answers on Avvo.com page of this website.
• View Gerry’s Lawyer Profile on Martindale.com showing him as AV® Preeminent™ Peer Review Rated.
• View Gerry’s profile on Naymz, including 7 endorsements of his work.
• Read Gerry’s public answers to questions in business law at LawGuru.com
• Read Gerry’s public answers to questions on computer and technology law at LawGuru.com
• Read Gerry’s public answers to questions on intellectual property at LawGuru.com
• Connect with Gerry on LinkedIn, and view his profile where 16 have recommended his work.  Read his public answers to legal questions on LinkedIn