Brandon R. Theiss

Brandon R. Theiss helps companies develop patent portfolios that protect commercially important technology and remain durable after issuance. A registered patent attorney and licensed professional engineer, Brandon advises clients throughout the patent lifecycle, including invention development, application drafting and prosecution, portfolio strategy, examiner interviews, appeals, post-grant proceedings, licensing, and monetization. 

Before entering patent practice, Brandon spent more than a decade as an engineer developing industrial-control systems, automation technologies, and medical devices for companies including Medtronic and American Standard. He holds degrees in electrical and computer engineering, industrial and systems engineering, and physics. That experience enables him to work directly with inventors, understand how complex systems operate, and translate technical advances into patent specifications and claims aligned with a client’s products and business objectives. 

Brandon’s prosecution practice encompasses medical devices, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, software, financial technology, data analytics, wireless communications, industrial automation, and advanced manufacturing. He represents clients ranging from individual inventors and emerging companies to pharmaceutical manufacturers and multinational technology companies. 

He has particular experience addressing patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Brandon works with clients to identify and describe the technical improvements underlying software and computer-implemented inventions, develop claim strategies grounded in system operation, and build prosecution records capable of supporting eligibility before the USPTO and, if necessary, on appeal. He also advises on difficult issues involving obviousness, written description, enablement, inventorship, and continuation strategy. 

Brandon’s post-grant experience directly informs his prosecution work. Before joining AddyHart, he established and led the post-grant proceedings practice at Volpe Koenig and represented clients in inter partes reviews involving complex technologies and high-value patent portfolios. Having seen how petitioners, experts, and the PTAB scrutinize patent claims and prosecution records, Brandon drafts and prosecutes applications with later validity challenges, claim construction, licensing, and enforcement in mind. 

His prosecution perspective also reflects substantial experience commercializing patent rights. At Intellectual Ventures, Brandon developed and led an open-source patent licensing program that generated more than $250 million in revenue. The work required him to connect patent claims to real-world software implementations, develop evidence-of-use methodologies, and create licensing strategies for technologies used throughout the financial-services industry. 

Brandon is an adjunct professor at Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law and a co-author of FDA and Intellectual Property Strategies for Medical Device Technologies. He writes frequently about patent prosecution, eligibility, post-grant practice, and comparative international patent law through Divergent Patent Law and other publications. IAM has recognized Brandon in its Strategy 300: The World’s Leading IP Strategists. 

Brandon earned his J.D. from Rutgers Law School, his M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering and B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rutgers University School of Engineering, and his B.A. in Physics from Rutgers University. He is registered to practice before the USPTO, admitted before the Federal Circuit, and licensed as a professional engineer.