Helle Ekstrom
Partner
Helle drafts the firm’s patent applications and the licenses that put an invention to work.
Helle was a mechanical engineer before law school, designing housings for consumer electronics. She still sketches every invention herself before she drafts a claim, because the drawing is where most of the questions show up.
She works with furniture and lighting designers, hardware founders and the small studios that make tools, toys and gear.
Works on
- Design patent applications
- Provisional and utility applications
- Replies to examiner rejections
- Patent and technology licenses
Credentials
Where Helle is admitted, and where she trained
Admissions
California
2014
Registered patent attorney, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
2013
Courts
U.S. District Court, Central District of California
2015
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2018
Education
J.D., University of Southern California Gould School of Law
2014
B.S., Mechanical Engineering, California Polytechnic State University
2009
Languages
English
Swedish
Memberships
Los Angeles Intellectual Property Law Association
How she works
The first meeting is mostly questions: what the thing does, what it looks like, who would copy it and how. Some answers point to a design patent, some to a utility application, and some to keeping it a trade secret and spending the money on tooling instead.
She tells you which, with the fee for each step, before anything is filed.