James B. Hatten

James B. Hatten helps technology companies protect innovation through patent prosecution, portfolio counseling, and intellectual-property strategy. A registered patent attorney with a degree in computer engineering, James advises clients on developing patent protection for sophisticated computer and communications technologies while aligning that protection with broader business and risk-management objectives.

James’s technical background enables him to engage directly with inventors and understand innovations at the system, hardware, and software levels. His experience encompasses computer architecture, software platforms, telecommunications, networking systems, electronic payments, identity-verification technologies, and other data-driven systems. He works with inventors and in-house counsel to identify protectable technical features, evaluate how those features fit within an existing portfolio, and develop prosecution strategies directed to the client’s commercially important technology.

James brings an additional perspective from litigating patents involving complex computer systems. He has analyzed patents and prosecution records in disputes involving payment networks, gift-card technology, identity-verification platforms, telecommunications, and electronic components. That experience gives him practical insight into how claim language, specification support, and prosecution statements may later affect claim construction, infringement, validity, and enforcement.

His broader experience with copyrights and trade secrets also helps clients determine how different forms of intellectual-property protection can work together. James advises technology companies on protecting their investments, conducting intellectual-property due diligence, managing infringement risk, and selecting protection strategies appropriate to the technology and the client’s business objectives.

Before joining AddyHart, James practiced at BakerHostetler, where he handled intellectual-property and technology disputes and advised clients on patent prosecution, portfolio protection, due diligence, indemnification, and anti-piracy strategy. He earned his B.S. in Computer Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. James is registered to practice before the USPTO and is admitted before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.