Dr. Thomas Ewing
Commercial Lawyer — Innovation Consultant — IP Systems Researcher
J.D., Ph.D. Tech. Mgmt. & Econ., Lic., M.Sc., M.A.

Specialties: IP strategy development for disruptive technologies entering established markets; IP valuation, IP education, infrastructure development, and intellectual asset diligence for investment.

Tom Ewing is a commercial lawyer, innovation counselor, and registered patent and trademark attorney with nearly 25 years of experience in the intellectual asset field. In his consulting practice, Tom advises both technology and non-technology firms regarding commercial aspects of their intellectual assets and assists investors in attaining a better understanding of the intellectual asset aspects of their investments and investment targets. Tom counsels commercial entities of all sizes, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. IAM Magazine has consecutively named Tom as one of the world’s top 250/300 IP strategists in each of the past 15 years.

Tom also teaches courses in technology management, economics, and the commercial aspects of intellectual assets at Chalmers University of Technology, and has taught courses at the Singapore Management University and the Singapore University of the Social Sciences. He has also lectured at universities worldwide. Tom coined the term “patent privateer” and has used the phrase in numerous academic and general publications. Please find a link to some of Tom’s academic publications here.

Tom counsels commercial entities of all sizes, as well as venture capital and private equity firms. Tom has represented a wide range of high technology companies during his career, such as Alcatel, Apertio, Apple, Ceva, Cisco, eBay, Einride, Grab Holdings, Hanson Robotics, Honda, Intuit, Listen (Rhapsody), Maersk, Micron, NEC, Netflix, Polestar, reMarkable, Samsung, Sharp, T-Netix, Tribune Media Services, and Paul Allen’s Vulcan, Inc. He has also represented investors such as Accel Partners, Amadeus, EIC InnoEnergy, the Environmental Technologies Fund, HgCapital, Kleiner Perkins, and Oak Investment Partners.

Tom authored the UN World Intellectual Property Organization’s textbook and course materials for an international patent agent training program. The textbook has been translated into seven languages and used in dozens of training courses by WIPO staff. Tom has personally trained patent agents from nearly 40 countries and led WIPO regional training courses in India, Singapore, Switzerland, Poland, Thailand, Trinidad, Slovenia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Zimbabwe. Tom also authored a course for WIPO in intellectual property valuation and trained students in valuation from nearly 15 countries.

Tom previously served as Vice President and Chief Intellectual Property Officer at OpenTV, Inc., an interactive television company then owned by Liberty Media Corp. Tom managed the worldwide intellectual property development efforts for OpenTV’s portfolio of nearly 2,000 issued and pending patents. He directed and managed patent litigation cases venued in federal district court and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Tom also served as IP coordinator for various worldwide standards organizations, performed due diligence on third-party IP portfolios, and structured and negotiated various IP-related agreements.

Tom has worked as an attorney at law firms in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle, and Washington, DC. In private practice, he focused on client counseling regarding intellectual assets, developing and managing intellectual property portfolios, conducting strategic analyses of various large patent portfolios, and supporting patent infringement litigations. His technical expertise includes software and computer-related inventions, telecommunications, business methods, bioinformatics, and electro-mechanical devices.

Before entering the legal profession, Tom served as a member of the technical staff of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California and as a patent agent at the California Institute of Technology. As an engineer, Tom helped develop interactive training simulators for various governmental and international organizations.

Tom has also worked as a journalist, including serving as senior legal editor and general counsel at aNewDomain, an online current affairs and culture magazine focusing on new technology founded in 2011 by award-winning journalists Gina Smith, John C. Dvorak, and Jerry Pournelle.

Tom was awarded his J.D. in 1996 from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco where he became a national quarter finalist in the Giles Sutherland Rich Moot Court Competition. Tom completed his PhD in technology management and economics at Chalmers University in 2022. He completed his licentiate degree in licentiate degree in industrial management and economics at Chalmers in 2011. He received an M.S. in Engineering and Policy from Washington University in St. Louis in 1988, and he received his B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tulsa in 1985. Tom has also received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in English literature. He is a member of the State Bars of California (1996) and Washington (1998, presently inactive) and is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (1990).