Overview
Andre Marais is a registered patent attorney and principal of Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner. Andre is passionate about architecting, building, and managing patent portfolios with his clients. He believes that patent portfolios should be valuable, strategic assets that align with a solid business strategy. Having had the good fortune to work closely with several of Silicon Valley’s prominent companies since their early days, he brings an “in the trenches” perspective to portfolio strategy and growth.
His practice focuses on strategic IP counseling and patent prosecution (US and foreign), patent validity, infringement and clearance analysis and opinions, and IP due diligence work, particularly in networking, software, communications, and electrical/electronic technologies.
Andre is a frequent speaker on intellectual property topics and is a co-author of several intellectual property publications.
Andre has been named in the IAM Strategy 300 by IAM magazine (Law Business Research) (2016-2022) and IAM Patent 1000 by IAM magazine (Law Business Research) (2012-2022).
Education
University of South Africa Faculty of Law
Pretoria, South Africa, 1993, J.D. equivalent
University of Stellenbosch
South Africa, 1990
Bachelor of Engineering (Industrial-Electronics)
Bar Admissions & Associations
Bar Admissions
California
South Africa
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Associations
Member, California State Bar Association
Member, Silicon Valley Intellectual Property Association (SVIPLA)
Member, American Intellectual Property Law Association
Member, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
Representative Patents
US5841299
Method and apparatus for selectively receiving write data within a write buffer of a host bridge
US5758166
Method and apparatus for implementing an adiabatic logic family
US5963595
Method and apparatus for encoding and decoding a bit sequence for transmission over pots wiring
US5982741
Method and apparatus for automatically reducing cross-talk between wires coupled to a common network device
US5987516
Method of gathering information pertaining to calls between nodes in a connection-oriented network
US6018742
Constructing a bifurcated database of context-dependent and context-independent data items
US6051029
Method of generating a display for a dynamic simulation model utilizing node and link representations
US6105065
Method of displaying changes in call status between nodes within a connection-oriented network
US6246718
Method and apparatus for decoding a bit sequence for transmission over pots wiring
US6381213
Method and apparatus for detecting collisions on a network
US6510463
Service quality monitoring process
US6523037
Method and system for communicating selected search results between first and second entities over a network
US6678321
Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving a symbol over pots wiring using a multi-cycle waveform
US6684250
Method and apparatus for estimating a geographic location of a networked entity
US6735217
Method and apparatus for detecting collisions on a network using multi-cycle waveform pulses
US6839794
Method and system to map a service level associated with a packet to one of a number of data streams at an interconnect device
US6850961
Method and system to perform a thread switching operation within a multithreaded processor based on detection of a stall condition
US6961858
Method and system to secure content for distribution via a network
US6983237
Method and apparatus for conducting linked simulation operations utilizing a computer-based system model
US6985945
Service quality monitoring process
US6993137
Method and system to securely distribute content via a network
US7026935
Method and apparatus to configure an rfid system to be adaptable to a plurality of environmental conditions
US7440901
Method and system to communicate agricultural product information to a consumer
Engagements and Publications
Freedom-To-Operate and Portfolio Due Diligence (Moderated)
5th Annual IP Counsel Forum (San Jose 2009) – Andre Marais, Francois de Villiers
Blood from the Stone: Extracting Invention Disclosures from Busy Engineers (Moderated)
6th Annual IP Counsel Forum (San Jose 2010) – Andre Marais, Bill Becker, Kirk Goodwin, Eugene Kim
Freedom-to-Operate – Patent Landscape Analysis
Web Cast (June 2009) – Andre Marais, Joseph Wang
Capitalizing on Emerging Markets & Technologies (Moderated)
SVASE (Palo Alto, 2006) – Andre Marais, Deepak Kamra (Canaan Partners), Tony Parisi, Anne-Marie Roussel, Anthony Townsend
Patent Prosecution 101
Law Seminars International’s workshop entitled “Patent Law for Non-Patent Lawyers and Business Professionals” (San Francisco April 6, 2005) – Andre Marais
KSR and its Aftermath
IP Counsel Café (Palo Alto, 2010) – Andre Marais, Jonathan Feuchtwang, Loren McRoss
