BRUCE E. BURDICK, ESQ.
Website: www.burdlaw.com  E-mail: bruce@burdlaw.com

BURDICK LAW FIRM
3656 Western Ave., Alton, IL 62002

(618) 462-3450   Fax: (618) 208-1712

St. Louis, MO (314) 256-9314

Overview

Mr. Burdick is an expert patent, trademark and copyright attorney who specializes in intellectual property law of all types, including litigation and prosecution for businesses and individuals alike. He is frequently retained by other patent attorneys for litigation matters due to his incredible array of corporate and private law experience and is nationally known as an advocate for independent inventors and start-up businesses.  He runs one of the world's best intellectual property websites www.burdlaw.com and in keeping it current, keeps himself up to date in all areas of intellectual property practice.   As a public service, Mr. Burdick also works part-time as a Transportation Security Officer at Lambert St. Louis airport.

He has been a Registered Patent Attorney since 1974. He is licensed to practice in Missouri, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas, before the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Western District Of Missouri, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. He is both a Certified Mediator in Intellectual Property and a Certified Arbitrator in Intellectual Property by the World Intellectual Property Organization of Geneva, Switzerland as well as an approved neutral for the US District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Missouri.

Education

Mr. Burdick received his B.E. degree in Metallurgical and Mechanical Engineering in 1969 from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, and his J.D. degree from the University of Texas in 1972.

Bar Admissions & Licenses

1973 Texas, 1974 US Patent & Trademark Office, 1974 Oklahoma, 1995 Illinois, 1996 Missouri plus numerous courts on State and Federal level.

Employment Experience

For 20 years (1974-1993), Mr. Burdick was a corporate patent attorney:

From 1974-1977, after law school, Mr. Burdick began his patent career as patent attorney for a leading oil well and construction company, Halliburton, (yes, that Halliburton!) in Oklahoma working on oil well equipment patents.

From 1977 to 1980 Mr. Burdick moved to Connecticut, where he was Patent Attorney for Olin Corporation’s Chemicals Group., 

From 1980-1981 Mr. Burdick was recruited to establish, and did establish, an in-house patent department at Nashua Corporation of Nashua, NH, in photocopier technologies.

In 1981, Olin Corporation recruited, rehired and promoted Mr. Burdick to return as Group Patent Counsel and establish a new patent department for Winchester at East Alton, Illinois near St. Louis.
In 1988 Mr. Burdick was promoted again to Chief Trademark Counsel and Senior Counsel for the entire company of Olin Corporation, and transferred back to Connecticut where he was responsible for obtaining, maintaining and enforcing domestic and foreign patents, trademarks and copyrights; government contract negotiations; intellectual property aspects of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures, and trademark litigation world-wide. At Olin, he created two intellectual property departments, developed a multimillion dollar licensing program (that continues still today) under the famous WINCHESTER trademark worldwide and enforced that name through litigation in more than 20 countries simultaneously over 15 years without ever losing even a single case, an incredible 15 year run of 100% success in hundreds of litigations, licenses, settlements and disputes of all sorts and kinds. During his corporate patent career Mr. Burdick worked on chemical inventions, mechanical inventions, electrical and electronic inventions, rocket science, microwave pulsed energy devices (“ray guns”), space systems, rocket engines, firearms, tanks, ammunition, advance explosive armor plate, advanced mobile mortar systems, laser-guided projectiles, medical devices, semiconductors, electronic circuit boards, plastics manufacturing, resilient foam production systems, foam-in-place packing systems, conveyor systems, trade secret policies and manuals, invention handling procedures and manuals, mergers and divestitures, quality control of licensees, trademark licensing and management, copyrights, patent department formation and management, and hiring and training of junior patent attorneys.

In 1993, Olin abruptly eliminated its corporate patent department as part of a major downsizing of its corporate headquarter staff, sending intellectual property law work (along with numerous other specialty law practices) to private firms in the Connecticut area. Since his wife was from the St. Louis, IL area, Mr. Burdick chose to move back to the St. Louis area and decided to start his own law firm so this could not happen again and he could control his own fate.

So, Mr. Burdick founded his own law firm The Burdick Law Firm (“burdlaw”) in Alton, IL (15 miles north of St. Louis, MO) in July 1993 specializing in intellectual property law of all types.  Mr. Burdick has owned and operated this firm continuously since that time. In addition to running his own firm, because of his vast expertise in all aspects of intellectual property gained during his years of corporate practice, and the widespread recognition of his expertise, Mr. Burdick has been “Of Counsel” (worked under special contract for limited periods of time) to a number of private law firms that found themselves “overwhelmed” due to temporary situations such as departure of a key attorney, a surge in new work, or heavy litigation demands.

For example, from 1993-1994, Mr. Burdick was Of Counsel to Kalish & Gilster LLP, a St. Louis patent boutique firm which later dissolved. He was associated with Herzog, Crebs & McGhee, LLP (a 30 lawyer general firm in St. Louis) from September 1997-August 1999, and directed its intellectual property law department. As testimony to his expertise, soon after Mr. Burdick left, that firm gradually stopped doing intellectual property law work. He was recruited to leave Herzog, Crebs & McGhee by Armstrong Teasdale LLP (One of the big St. Louis general practice firms which does patent work mainly for General Electric) due to a surge in new work and major expansion in size where he was Of Counsel from August 1999 to March 2000 supervising and training junior attorneys. Later, from May 2000-May 2002 Mr. Burdick was Of Counsel to the St. Louis Intellectual Property Law firm Haverstock, Garrett & Roberts, (One of the older patent firms in St. Louis which had lost several key attorneys to other firms and impending retirement), primarily handling patent litigation.

From 1969-1970 (Prior to law school), Mr. Burdick was a nuclear metallurgy engineer from the time he graduated engineering school in 1969 to 1970 with United Nuclear Corporation working on nuclear reactor components for naval power systems for aircraft carriers and destroyers, but left to attend law school after meeting local patent attorneys and determining that was the career he wanted to pursue.

Capabilities (35+ years experience)

	Mr. Burdick has extensive patent and trademark prosecution, licensing and litigation experience in the United States and nearly all European, South American, Scandinavian, and Far Eastern countries.
	Patent application preparation, filing, prosecution and maintenance world-wide;
	Trademark application preparation, filing, prosecution, registration and maintenance world-wide;
	Patent licensing both domestic and foreign;
	Trademark opposition, cancellation and litigation on an international scale having simultaneously litigated trademark issues in more than 20 countries;
	Handling of trade secrets, export control matters and military classified information;
	Patent opinions of all types, including patentability, infringement, non-infringement, validity, invalidity, right-to-use, state of the art opinions and pre-litigation and post litigation patent opinions;
	Negotiation of Government contracts and data rights and technology transfers and licensesPatent and trademark litigation in Federal and foreign courts;
	Patent applications in the U.S. and abroad on mechanical, computer, chemical and electrical inventions,
	Intellectual property audits;
	Expert witness in intellectual property matters;
	Mediation and arbitrations of intellectual property disputes;
	Trademark clearances, trademark selection advise, and trademark protection strategies;
	Trademark applications and prosecution in the U.S. and abroad;
	Marketing of inventions, being advisor to several inventor groups;
	Negotiation of trademark and patent licenses;
	Supervision of transfers of intellectual property rights world-wide, including mergers and acquisitions both small and large; and
	Training of patent and trademark attorneys

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For the inventor or company interested in making money on its inventions:

	He is an expert on structuring of and types of entities for new businesses such as LLC, Subchapter S, Subchapter C, General Partnership and Limited Partnerships.
	He knows how to protect your creations at minimum cost, efficiently and effectively and is a frequent speaker for inventor groups on inventor start-ups, business strategy and options, and
	He is a frequent lecturer on obtaining funding for independent inventors and start-up businesses and is an active member of the Missouri Venture Forum.

For the corporate attorney and corporate intellectual property assets:

	He has successfully and repeatedly litigated trademarks worldwide in over 40 countries, often simultaneously and with hundreds of litigations and
	Mr. Burdick has established and trained 5 intellectual property law departments (Nashua Corp., Winchester Group, Olin Trademark, Burdick Law Firm, and Herzog Crebs & McGhee) and trained numerous other patent lawyers;
	Has advised thousands of start up businesses on patents, inventions, trade secrets and trademarks. He could expertly help yours, too.
	Has obtained patents on all sorts of technologies from rockets science like ion propulsion engines, monopropellant hydrazine rocket thrusters and arc jet thrusters (Rocket Research Company, Redmond, WA) to high intensity microwave "ray guns" for satellites (Physics International, San Leandro, CA) to airplane computer diagnostic equipment (Pacific Electro Dynamics of Redmond, WA) to tank ammunition (Olin Ordnance, St. Petersburg, FL) to pool chlorine dispensers (Olin HTH Pulsar, Stamford, CT) to brass alloys (Olin Metal Research Lab, New Haven, CT), to all sorts of computer related inventions, truck accessories, engine parts, medical devices, etc.
	Has written corporate manuals on Trade Secrets, Correct Trademark Usage, Patent Strategy, Government Data Rights, Secrecy Markings, Unsolicited Idea Handling, Patent Insurance, Copyright Practice, Intellectual Property Valuation, Licensing, and Joint Venturing.
	Has managed several different corporate patent departments and functions on both divisional and corporate levels.
	He frequently advises on patent department organization, training and management.

For the attorney seeking Litigation Counsel:

	He has argued cases before both the Board of Patent Appeals and the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board and practices patent and patent and trademark litigation in three US District Courts and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals.
	He is one of only 2 lawyers in the St. Louis area trained by the World Intellectual Property Organization in arbitration and mediation.

Technology Capabilities:

	He is computer literate, having experience with Internet technology, website creation, Microsoft Office 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010 and Windows 7, XP and Vista, as well as numerous intellectual property software programs.
	He has been Webmaster for six Internet websites; including this one (Burdpix ---1062 ---Hoedowners ---Burdlaw ---I3 ---Conf );
	He uses the latest in computer equipment e-mail, scanning, digital imaging, etc. to reduce costs; and
	He makes extensive use of electronic forms and legal software to minimize preparation times and reduce clerical errors in documents and forms.

Memberships (past or present):

	American Intellectual Property Law Association (Special Internet ADR Committees),
	American Bar Association (Intellectual Property and ADR Committees),
	Licensing Executives Society,
	Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis (Law Technology, ADR and IP Committees),
	Missouri Bar (ADR and IP Committees),
	State Bar of Texas (IP Committee),
	Illinois State Bar Association, and
	International Trademark Association