W. Karl Renner is a Principal in the Washington, D.C. office of Fish & Richardson P.C. Mr. Renner co-chairs the firm’s Post Grant Practice Group, and he serves on the firm’s Management Committee. His practice emphasizes client counseling, strategic patent prosecution, contentious inter and ex parte post grant and reissue work, due diligence and freedom-to-operate investigations, and patent-related opinion work. In this practice, Mr. Renner has provided the strategic direction for well over 100 AIA post grant matters, challenging and defending patents, most commonly in coordination with litigation counsel amidst co-pending disputes.
Mr. Renner manages the patent portfolios of clients ranging from emerging companies to Fortune 50 corporations. Mr. Renner also regularly advises on effective commercialization/enforcement of company IP, and on defensive tactics to address competitor IP. In this regard, Mr. Renner specializes in post grant matters, representing both patent owners and challengers.
Mr. Renner is technically focused on the electrical, computer-related, physics and mechanical arts. As such, he has extensive experience in the following technologies: Internet-driven solutions, network systems and protocols, data storage and retrieval standards and media, microprocessor and computer architecture, mobile and other communications equipment and processes, display technologies, semiconductor devices and fabrication processes, signal and image processing techniques, complex optical and mechanical devices, error detection and correction techniques, cryptography, telecommunications, financial processes, acoustics and video standards and equipment, and thermodynamic processes and systems.
Mr. Renner has prior engineering experience with the Instrumentation Branch of the U.S. Department of Energy, where he worked on the development and implementation of control systems, high-frequency optical imaging of particles during combustion processes, computer programming in machine and object oriented languages, and computer design and breadboard testing of analog circuits. Mr. Renner is now a frequent lecturer and author on intellectual property matters, regularly speaking at University of Maryland events, in conjunction with their Engineering Schools and Hinman CEO program.
