Marc A. Sockol is a partner in the Intellectual Property Practice Group in the firm's Palo Alto office. He is also the Co-Office Managing Partner of the office.

Areas of Practice

Mr. Sockol specializes in intellectual property rights. Mr. Sockol applies his technical and legal skills to client counseling, portfolio analysis and development, preparation and prosecution of patent applications, preparation of patentability, invalidity and noninfringement opinions, and the assertion and defense of patent litigation claims. He also has experience in trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, open source and technology licensing.

Many patents that he has drafted have been litigated and have brought licensing revenue to his clients. Recent examples include three patents for a software company involving data synchronization and three patents for a network security company.

Mr. Sockol has drafted, prosecuted and defended more than 1000 patent applications across a broad spectrum of technological areas, including:

Application development tools
Biometrics
Business methods
Computer hardware (including memory systems, microprocessors, bus communication, video displays, disk drives, and scanners)
Computer software (including application software, computer games, operating systems, and system drivers)
Database structures
Digital and analog circuitry
E-commerce
Fault tolerant systems
HVAC
Internet
Medical devices
Multimedia distribution systems
Networking
Network and computer security systems
Optics
POS hardware and software
QAM
QOS monitoring
RFID
Satellites
Semiconductor design and fabrication
Set-top boxes
Solar power
Storage management systems (including RAID systems)
Thin films
Video games
Wireless systems (including WiFi and WiMax)