David Nicholson

David Nicholson is a founding partner of Nicholson De Vos Webster & Elliott LLP. He is a registered patent attorney who focuses on IP protection in the software and hardware industries. He provides a broad range of patent-related services, including preparation and prosecution of patent applications (both foreign and domestic), design and evaluation of patent programmes, review and evaluation of patent portfolios, due diligence evaluations, post-grant proceedings, litigation support and opinions regarding patent validity and infringement. His background in electrical and computer engineering has allowed him to work on many interesting technologies, including:

• processors, including general purpose, network and security;
• chipsets;
• network devices, including routers and firewall/virtual private network security appliances;
• disk-based storage systems for data recovery and fabrication, including micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) devices, thin-film transistors in liquid-crystal displays and pulse code modulation; and
• software, including network security, cryptography, routing protocols, network management, social networking, compression and decompression of data (including video and audio standards such as MPEG-4), database access (including object-oriented designs), data protection and retention and back-up utilities.

Before practising law, Mr Nicholson worked in the special purpose processor development group at the Mayo Clinic, designing MEMS devices and analysing existing application-specific integrated circuit designs, including both digital and analogue devices.

Mr Nicholson was named a Super Lawyers Rising Star in 2014 and 2015 and a Top Patent Prosecutor by Patent Buddy, and was listed in the IAM Patent 1000 in 2015 and 2016.

He has a BSEE from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a JD from the University of Houston.