Reviews

Very good lawyer. She went above and beyond to make sure I was satisfied. I would highly recommend.

Ellen Bierman is my referral of choice for all patent and trademark matters in the Pacific Northwest. I am glad to refer my best clients to her.

Ellen has represented me for many years. I appreciate her ability quickly understand the issues or concepts I'm involved with and contribute in a timely manner. I highly recommend Ellen and her staff.

I’ve worked with Ellen on a number of patents over the years and have very much appreciated the quality of her work. She’s very thoughtful and thorough – makes the effort to understand the invention and what’s valuable in it. The applications are well crafted and solid. She’s particularly good at generalizing the invention. My inclination was to just focus on the application areas I had in mind, but she broadened them which turned out to be very helpful when those turned out to be not so valuable but other uses were. In the following years it’s been much more the situation of “I’m glad we put that in” rather than “I wish we had thought to cover that”. Doing this well requires a strong understanding of both the invention and the broader domain area and she has that, certainly in tech areas.

It's a pleasure working with a patent attorney as smart as Ellen. She has drafted several patent applications for me and each time went well beyond expectation to learn more about the broad subject area to ensure the patent was as comprehensive as possible. I haven't found the boundaries of her intellectual curiosity. From signal processing algorithms, to neuroscience, to biology, to machine learning systems, she's right on top of any weird thing I come to her with. She asks smart questions which helps me see my IP from some unexpected angles, which in turn has led to a few more patents! In addition to her razor-sharp intellect, Ellen is funny and charming, which makes working closely with her a very pleasant experience. Getting a call from Ellen to ask me about some obscure dark corner of my IP is often the highlight of my day.

Leveraging her technical history with Microsoft, combined with a deep, contemporary understanding of patent law, Ellen helped define, design, and pursue the successful award of 12+ US and International patents for our Kirland based software company. In addition to her unique technical background and deep legal experience, her persistence in educating and negotiating with Examiners was critical to our success. I would strongly recommend Ellen and her team!

Ellen has steered me through to award of two patents - the first was a technical algorithm, which went smoothly through the PTO with no office actions; the second was a commercial healthcare product which presented numerous challenges (not because of the topic or quality, but with the PTO itself). In both cases, Ellen's expertise, dexterity and thoughtful strategic approach were of paramount importance. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would work with Ellen in an instant.