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Tom Millikan

image of Tom Millikan
image of Tom Millikan
Partner

Tom Millikan

Tom represents clients from startups to leading technology companies across the country in patent litigation and trials.

Tom Millikan has represented technology leaders, established and emerging companies, and small inventors in district courts nationwide and before the U.S. International Trade Commission. He provides strategic intellectual property (IP) counseling, including tactical patent prosecution and advice on patent infringement, validity, reexaminations, and due diligence. 

Experienced in various areas of technology, Tom has worked on cases involving video compression, audio compression, speech compression, biochemical decontamination, unified communications, video conferencing, gaming systems, image enhancement, and distributed databases. His achievements include forcing favorable settlements for both plaintiffs and defendants, as well as originating winning liability defenses for a software company in a series of trials named among the “Top 10 Litigation Wins” by IP Law and Business. 

Tom's experience as an electrical engineer adds to his understanding of clients' products, perspectives, and challenges. Prior to law school, he worked at Texas Instruments as a digital signal processing engineer, where he designed software and systems for MP3 players, mobile phones, GPS systems, and video players. He managed and mentored teams of engineers in Asia, Europe, and North America while servicing customers in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Austria, and England. 

Education & Credentials

Education

  • University of Texas School of Law, J.D., with honors, Editor, Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal, 2004
  • University of Cincinnati, B.S., Electrical Engineering; Mathematics Minor, cum laude, 1999

Bar and Court Admissions

  • California
  • Ohio
  • Texas
  • U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
  • U.S. District Court for the Central District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California
  • U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas

Related Employment

  • Fish & Richardson P.C., Partner
  • Texas Instruments, Digital Media Engineer

Professional Recognition

  • Recognized as a "Top 250 leading attorney" in PTAB Intelligence by Patexia, 2024

  • Recognized as a leader in Patexia’s Patent Litigation Intelligence Report, 2021

  • Listed in Best Lawyers in America: Litigation - Patent, 2021-2022

  • "Top 100 best performing attorneys representing Petitioners" in the IPR Intelligence Report in 2019 by Patexia. Insights

  • Recommended in Intellectual Asset Management Patent 1000, 2019-2024

  • Named a “Top Attorney” (Intellectual Property Litigation) in San Diego by the San Diego Daily Transcript, 2013

Impact

Professional Leadership

  • Yeakel IP Inn of Court, Austin, TX, Barrister Member, 2023
  • Judge Alan Albright Working Group, 2023
  • Intellectual Property Owners Association, Standards Setting Committee, Member, 2024
  • University of Texas School of Law, Patent Advocacy Course, 2022-2023
  • Cleantech San Diego, Board Member, 2019-present
  • University of Cincinnati, College of Engineering, Industry Advisory Board, 2018-present

Professional Experience

Inventions

  • U.S. Patent No. 6,847,593, “Method for Constructing Compress Audio File System in a Compact Disc Player” 
  • U.S. Patent No. 6,928,039, “Method and Apparatus for the Reduction of Power Consumption in a Compact Disc Player”
  • U.S. Patent No. 7,023,770, “Encoding Rate-Based, Programmable, Linear Velocity, Compressed Audio Compact Disc Player”
  • U.S. Patent No. 7,042,813, “Shock Protection for Compressed Audio on a CD Player”
  • U.S. Patent No. 7,343,019, “Streaming Normalization”
  • U.S. Patent No. 7,702,721, “Method and apparatus for providing music information for a wireless audio player”
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