Current Employment Position(s)

Partner

Year Joined Organization: 1989

Lawyer Overview

THOMAS A. RUNK received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Lowell Technological Institute and his J.D. from Western State University.  He is involved in all aspects of the firm's intellectual property practice and specializes in patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, contracts, and licensing.  He has extensive experience in obtaining patents in the fields of electrical, mechanical, signal processing, control systems, information management and processing systems, computer hardware, and software technologies worldwide.  He also has extensive experience in contracts pertaining to intellectual property rights, and in software, patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret licensing agreements and confidentiality agreements worldwide.  He also is experienced in the copyright and patent protection of software worldwide.  In recent years, he has worked extensively with medical instruments, devices, and systems.  In addition to having broad experience in patent, trademark, and copyright licensing matters, he also has extensive experience in the intellectual property aspects pertaining to acquisitions and divestitures of product lines and of entire companies.  He also provides client counseling services regarding the analysis of the patent, trademark, and copyright rights of others when developing new products and bringing those products to market.

Mr. Runk has also been actively engaged in intellectual property litigation including all aspects of pre-trial work as well as trial to a jury.

Mr. Runk joined the firm in 1989 and became a partner in 1995.  Before that time, he was Associate Patent Counsel for the Ground Systems Group of Hughes Aircraft Company and was responsible for the protection of its radar technologies, spread spectrum communications technologies, display consoles, sonar and radar processor technologies, software products, and its computer products.

He is admitted to practice in California; the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit; the U.S. District Courts in the Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of California; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; the U.S. Supreme Court, and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  He is a member of the State Bar of California, the American Bar Association, the Long Beach Bar Association, the Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Los Angeles Intellectual Property American Inn of Court. 

Mr. Runk is a speaker with the Continuing Education of the Bar (CEB) on Trade Secret Law and is a contributing author to the CEB publication, "Trade Secret Practice in California."

Areas of Practice

• Patent
• Trademark
• Trade Dress
• Copyright
• Contracts- IP
• Licenses and Licensing Agreements
• Trade Secrets
• Litigation

West Practice Categories

Patents, Trade Secrets

Bar Admissions

• California
• U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit
• U.S. Court of Appeals Federal Circuit
• U.S. District Court Central District of California
• U.S. District Court Northern District of California
• U.S. District Court Southern District of California
• U.S. Supreme Court
• U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

Professional Associations and Memberships

• State Bar of California (Member)
• American Bar Association (Member)
• Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association (Member)
• Los Angeles Intellectual Property American Inn of Court (Master)
• Long Beach Bar Association (Member)

Past Employment Positions

• Hughes Aircraft Company, Associate Patent Counsel, Ground Systems Group
• Hughes Aircraft Company, Radar Circuit Design Engineer

Education

• Western State University College of Law, Fullerton, California
  J.D.
• Lowell Technological Institute
  B.S.
  Major: Electrical Engineering

Address

Howard Hughes Center
6060 Center Drive
Tenth Floor
Los Angeles, CA 90045

Phones

(310) 824-5555

Faxes

(310) 824-9696

Emails

Contact Us

Websites

http://www.fulpat.com