About
Our Team
Modal is led by Brian Epstein, our Principal and Representative Attorney. Other professional staff include a US Patent Attorney and US Patent Agent. They allow Modal to provide services in special interest patent areas, while clients also benefit from native Japanese linguistic skills.
Modal’s professional staff are supported by a group of skilled patent and business specialists. An experienced Intellectual Property secretary is available to address client needs, and further staff include a Controller, an Information Technologist, and a native Japanese-speaking cultural consultant.
Brian Epstein
PRINCIPAL and
REPRESENTATIVE ATTORNEY
Brian R. Epstein is a U.S. Patent Attorney. He has been practicing in international and domestic patent law since 2007, building a career in some of the most respected IP groups and cultivating colleagues worldwide.
Brian has received hundreds of patent grants in the electrical, mechanical, chemical, and business method arts in such diverse areas as communications, medical devices, semiconductors, circuits, imaging devices, consumer electronics, gaming machines, and sports equipment.
Brian frequently handles families of cases, recognizing a holistic approach to patent portfolio development and has worked on numerous industry standards patents to that end.
Brian has worked with a variety of Fortune Global 500 companies, conducting hundreds of interviews with USPTO Examiners to achieve favorable outcomes for the cases in his care. He has responded to both domestic and international office actions, which number over two thousand with the USPTO alone.
Prior to his career in law, Brian worked for Texas Instruments and Motorola, Inc.
Brian is a graduate of the University of Florida (BSEE, MSEE, MSM) and The George Washington University (JD). He is licensed to practice before the US Patent and Trademark Office and in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
John Robbins
US PATENT AGENT
US Patent Agent John Robbins has been a pillar of US Patent practice for close to 40 years. Early in his career, Mr. Robbins had a six-year residency in Japan, working for a patent firm in Osaka. From 1987, Mr. Robbins worked for US patent law firms in Washington, D.C., and was admitted to the US patent bar in 1991. He brings extensive experience in application drafting and prosecution, with over 400 applications written and successfully brought to issuance. His wide area of technical expertise includes software and computer-implemented inventions, particularly for vehicular systems, as well as communications for vehicular systems; industrial systems and processing for semiconductors, packaging, and inspection; and mechanical technologies, such as bicycle components. Mr. Robbins also carries experience in medical devices, robotics and micro motors, and his work with biological and chemical technology has concerned plant-produced genomics processing methods; bio-matter extraction and bio-matter refinement systems; electrophoresis-related technologies; and microsphere technology. Mr. Robbins has primarily represented American and Japanese corporations – in addition to native English proficiency, he also speaks conversational Japanese.