Merchant & Gould Hires Experienced Attorney for Atlanta Office

Business Wire, July 16, 2002

Business Editors

Tim Tingkang Xia, Ph.D., has joined the Atlanta office of intellectual property law firm Merchant & Gould as a partner. Tim will counsel clients in all phases of intellectual property law, including U.S. and foreign patent, trademark, and copyright prosecution, clearance, infringements, and validity opinions, licensing, and counseling clients with respect to intellectual property management and business strategies. In particular, Tim will counsel clients in patent prosecution and litigation in the areas of computers, electronics, optics, and new and complex technologies that are multi-discipline in nature such as nanotechnologies and bioinformatics.

Prior to joining Merchant & Gould, Tim worked with several Atlanta-based IP firms, where among other things he prepared and prosecuted more than two hundred patent applications in a variety of areas, including telecommunications, optics, mechanical devices, and electronic devices. Tim received his Juris Doctor from the Columbia University School of Law, where he was named as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and his Ph.D. in physics from Ohio State University. Tim was born and raised in China, and came to the United States after he earned his B.S. in physics from Peking University. "It was a long march for me to become a U.S. patent attorney," Tim says.

"There is a growing demand for smart, skilled patent attorneys in the burgeoning Atlanta market, and Tim will be a valuable asset for our clients and the firm," says Chris Leonard, managing partner of Merchant & Gould's Atlanta office. "His impressive experience and education are just what we need, and I look forward to having him on the team."

About Merchant & Gould

Merchant & Gould, founded in 1900, is a national intellectual property law firm with more than 110 attorneys in offices in Atlanta, Denver, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. The firm works exclusively on patent, trademark, and copyright issues. The firm was recently ranked one of the top two trademark-filing law firms by Intellectual Property Today and one of the top six IP plaintiff litigation firms by IP Worldwide.