Ryan W. Smith
Associate
Tel (703) 413-2386

Ryan W. Smith

Associate

RYAN W. SMITH is a patent prosecution lawyer in the firm's Mechanical Patent Prosecution group where he advises clients and facilitates the acquisition of U.S. patents. Mr. Smith has considerable experience utilizing the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO). He often conducts personal interviews with the USPTO Examining Corps on behalf of his clients to expedite the prosecution process.

Due to his years of automotive industry experience, Mr. Smith is particularly knowledgeable about many aspects of automotive technology, including combustion, power transmission, suspensions, hybrid electric technology, and fuel cells. Further, he is experienced in advising clients in matters relating to semiconductor processing, medical devices, and consumer electronics.

During law school, Mr. Smith worked as a technical consultant at the Argonne National Laboratory. There he gained experience in hardware-in-the-loop controls and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Prior to law school, Mr. Smith was an engineer for General Motors Corporation (GM) where he was directly responsible for the technical design of power electronics and electric machines that are now available in several of GM’s hybrid vehicles. Mr. Smith also gained valuable experience with dual-clutch transmissions, advanced batteries, fuel economy modeling, and reliability testing. As a GM engineer, he worked extensively in Japan, Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Representative Matters

Provided patent prosecution and counsel to a leading automotive manufacturer to help ensure the recognition of the client’s patent portfolio as an international standard in the field.

Assisted a leading manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment in developing a broad patent portfolio directed at various technological aspects of that industry.

Utilizing the Patent Prosecution Highway program, obtained numerous U.S. patents for his clients and drastically reduced the examination time for these applications.

Worked closely with domestic inventors to provide opinions on patentability of new inventions and, when applicable, has written new U.S. patent applications drawn toward a variety of technological fields.