Steve began his career in patent law in 1993. During this time, Steve worked in both corporate and private practice environments. His practice currently involves domestic and international patent preparation and prosecution, infringement and product clearance opinions, client counseling and litigation support. Steve's international practice includes filing and prosecuting Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and national phase patent applications, as well as serving as a U.S. associate for foreign law firms for foreign originating patents filed in the U.S. by way of Paris Convention, PCT national phase and bypass route filings.

Licensed to practice law in Minnesota and North Dakota
Licensed to practice before the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office

Education

B.S., magna cum laude, Electrical Engineering, University of North Dakota
J.D., magna cum laude (top 5%), William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota

Prior Industry Experience

Upon completion of his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering, Steve began his career as an electrical engineer at Unisys Corporation in Roseville, Minnesota. At Unisys, Steve worked for six years in both hardware and software development of large-scale computer systems. He designed and programmed processor-based systems to monitor and control the power, clocking and environmental conditions of mainframe computer systems. His work included designing and testing analog systems, digital electronics, processor and memory boards, voltage regulation, fault detection and error reporting, where he reached the level of senior electrical design engineer. In January 1993, Steve joined the Unisys Law Department as a patent agent, and became a licensed attorney in Minnesota in 1995. Since that time, Steve gained experience at both large and small intellectual property law firms prior to co-founding Hollingsworth & Funk.

Technical Experience

Steve works in various technical areas, including the electrical/electronics, software, and mechanical arts. Representative technologies include telecommunications, networking, computer architecture, electronics, gaming, software applications, medical devices, business methods and electro-mechanical systems. In the software area, Steve's engineering experience included programming in assembly languages as well as higher level languages such as FORTH, C+ and BASIC. He has prepared patent applications in numerous software related areas, including: computer networking protocols (infrastructure-based and peer-to-peer), primarily at the data link, network, transport and application layers of the OSI model.

Professional Activities

Steve is a member of the American Intellectual Properly Law Association (AIPLA) and the Minnesota Intellectual Property Law Association (MIPLA). He has also served as a mentor for the patent program at the William Mitchell College of Law.