Partners

Mike Jennings
Partner
Patent Attorney
mjj@aathornton.com

Mike is a European Patent Attorney and UK Chartered Patent Attorney with wide experience working for clients all around the world, both as an in-house patent attorney and outside counsel. He became a partner of A.A.Thornton & Co in 2008.

Mike graduated in 1989 with an honours degree in physics from the University of Bristol in the UK, and joined the patent profession in 1990. He specializes in patent protection and advice covering a wide range of physics-related technologies, telecommunications inventions and computer-related inventions. His clients include multinational corporations and leading companies in the UK and many other countries, including clients in the oil and gas industry, the telecommunications sector, engineering, gas detection, consumer electronics and computing.

Mike has a lot of experience in identification and selection of inventions for patent filing, drafting and prosecuting patent applications, patent portfolio management and licensing, and advising on other intellectual property.  He is very enthusiastic when working on new inventions and on challenging patent prosecution or opposition cases ("winning against the odds"), and prides himself on giving practical advice that is relevant to each client's individual needs.

Mike joined the electrical patents team of A.A.Thornton & Co in 2007 after gaining deep experience in computer-related technologies as a Senior Patent Attorney within IBM Corporation’s in-house intellectual property law department, where he handled prosecution of European, PCT and UK patent applications in areas such as semiconductor devices and processing, computer circuitry and processors, storage systems, computer software and computer-related services.  He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys’ Computer Technology Committee.