Jim Katz is a seasoned patent attorney with deep expertise across all facets of patent law, including prosecution, litigation, licensing, trade secret protection, and legal opinions.

His practice spans a wide range of technologies, with a particular emphasis on financial technologies, computer architecture, computer science and engineering, electrical engineering, e-commerce and business processes, and mechanical systems.

Jim’s prosecution experience includes derivative trading systems, both on the exchange and trader sides, block chain and distributed ledgers, user interfaces, network/data communication protocols and monitoring, semiconductor design and manufacturing, memory management units, flash memory, electrical power monitoring/management systems, diagnostic medical ultrasound, mobile e-commerce platforms, and object-oriented programming.

In the realm of e-commerce, finance and Internet technologies, Jim maintains a strong command of the evolving landscape. He routinely reviews U.S. and international patents and applications to stay current with developments in financial engineering, business methods, and software-related innovations.

Before co-founding Lempia Summerfield Katz, Jim was a partner at Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione in Chicago. Over his 12-year tenure there, he developed deep experience in client counseling, patent prosecution, litigation, and licensing. He also chaired the firm’s Docket Oversight Committee for five years, overseeing firm-wide docket operations as well as defining firm docketing and patent prosecution best practices and procedures, as well as liability-mitigation policies and procedures.

Non-Legal Experience

Before entering the legal profession, Jim built a strong foundation in computer engineering. He began his career at Amdahl Corporation as a Test and Design Engineer, where he contributed to the architectural design of enterprise-scale mainframe computer systems. He later joined HaL Computer Systems, Inc., working as a Design Verification Engineer focused on simulator development for multiprocessor storage architectures, including cache memory and memory management units.

Jim brings working knowledge of integrated circuit design and fabrication, computer networking, operating systems, and a variety of programming languages. His technical expertise includes Windows, Mac OS, Unix, DOS, IBM 370/390 Assembly, Perl, C++, and Fortran.