Attorneys

*Limited to matters and proceedings before federal courts and agencies, including the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

T. Brian Bell is an attorney with the Washington, D.C. law firm of Staas & Halsey LLP. He specializes in the preparation and prosecution of patent applications related to electrical devices and software.

Before attending law school, Mr. Bell spent over seven years working as an electrical engineer with a systems integrator, mainly providing solutions for automotive and food companies. His work required both software programming and hardware design. Consequently, he has extensive experience with many electrical devices and in several programming languages. As an engineer, Mr. Bell led small and large projects from the initial design phase through the installation and final commissioning of controls systems.

Mr. Bell spent his second and third years of law school working part time at the University of Illinois Office of Technology Management (OTM). He began as a commercialization analyst, researching the patentability and marketability of University innovations, and participated in the process of licensing patents obtained from those innovations. Mr. Bell conducted many interviews of graduate students and professors in a wide array of fields regarding their disclosed technologies to understand the essence of the invention and to explain the patenting process. Later, he worked closely with the patent coordination team at the OTM to draft patent claims and responses to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) office actions, and to improve the quality and efficiency of analyst prior art searches.

Mr. Bell has an electrical engineering degree (B.S.) with a specialization in the field of telecommunications from Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee. He also has a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Illinois College of Law in Champaign, Illinois. Mr. Bell is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the USPTO, and is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association.

Mr. Bell's hobbies include hiking, playing golf, winemaking, and woodworking.