Wayne Helge

With more than 18 years of experience practicing patent law as a Registered Patent Attorney, Wayne Helge represents clients in all aspects of patent and intellectual property law, including litigation, post-grant patent challenges, patent and trademark prosecution, licensing and technology-related commercial disputes. Wayne competently handles matters concerning a wide variety of technologies, including computer-based threat modeling, power distribution systems, medical devices, online gaming and virtual reality software, imaging software solutions, fiber-optic communications, semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing, video encoding, flat panel displays (LCDs, plasma display panels, OLEDs) and driving circuitry, telecommunications devices and standards and computer memory. He also is a Registered Professional Engineer and holds a Master of Science degree in engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which he earned while serving as an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard.

Wayne’s patent practice has included prosecuting hundreds of patent applications. He is skilled at conducting inventor interviews and drafting and prosecuting original patent applications, with an emphasis on strategic claim drafting based on his extensive experience litigating patent infringement suits.

Wayne has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in federal courts across the country, including in the active patent litigation venues in Texas (Eastern and Western Districts), California (Southern, Central and Northern Districts) and Delaware. Most of these cases have been patent infringement cases, but Wayne also represents clients is technology-related litigation such as software license disputes, breach of non-disclosure agreements and trade secret misappropriation. He has taken dozens of depositions of fact and expert witnesses, presented claim construction briefing and arguments and disposed of cases via dispositive motions. He also has extensive experience counseling clients prior to any litigation, and has prepared legal opinions and recommendations to avoid infringement liability. Wayne has negotiated and drafted many U.S. and international patent licenses over his career, covering from as few as one patent to entire patent portfolio licenses.

Wayne also has extensive experience representing petitioners and patent owners in contested disputes (inter partes reviews or IPRs) before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO), having appeared in more than 200 cases, most often as lead counsel.  Wayne also has represented both complainants and respondents before the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). Patent-related appeals are heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), and Wayne’s appellate experience includes briefing and arguing multiple appeals from both district court and agencies before the CAFC, and seeking review by the U.S. Supreme Court.

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