Nathaniel W. Lucek

Nathaniel assists clients with intellectual property, contract, and corporate matters. Much of Nathaniel’s practice focuses on patent law, including the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, due diligence projects, and opinion work. Nathaniel also regularly advises clients on intellectual property strategy issues. He has supported patent portfolio development for entities ranging from Fortune 500 corporations to universities and startups. His areas of experience include semiconductor capital equipment; semiconductor and solar cell designs; ion implantation; optical and imaging systems; industrial chemicals; superconductors; nanomaterials; silicon wafer production; metal alloys; biomedical devices; touch screens and displays; and image processing algorithms.

Nathaniel also has experience helping European companies expand into the United States, handling general corporate and complex intellectual property matters. Specifically, Nathaniel has helped startups and mid-sized corporations from Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, and Lithuania grow their U.S. businesses or develop their global patent portfolios. Besides helping obtain patent protection, his work with European companies includes corporate formation, sales agreements, joint development agreements, and intellectual property licenses.

Nathaniel is a member of the firm’s blockchain and cryptocurrency, startup, and cleantech practices, where he frequently counsels emerging companies about intellectual property, contract, and corporate issues.

Prior to joining Hodgson Russ, Nathaniel spent more than five years as in-house intellectual property counsel at a semiconductor capital equipment manufacturer in Massachusetts. While there, his responsibilities included patent preparation and prosecution, patent and trademark portfolio management, patent reexamination, patent infringement matters, due diligence projects, negotiating license agreements, managing government contracts, and opinion work. Nathaniel also managed aspects of a multibillion-dollar acquisition.

At Franklin Pierce Law Center, Nathaniel was lead articles editor for IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review and competed in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. He also won the New Hampshire Bar Journal Editor's Award in 2007.

Nathaniel contributed to Hodgson Russ's Clean and Green Law blog as well as the Startup Talk blog. His blog entries include:

• Keeping Your Application Aloft: Fighting Obviousness Rejections at the Patent Office
  JANUARY 3, 2017
• Pack Smarter When Preparing a Patent Application for Europe
  AUGUST 9, 2016
• Fighting Patent Application Rejections with Market Information: More Than Just "Nobody Else Sells This"
  FEBRUARY 19, 2016
• Do the Evolution: Five Ways to Adapt Your Patent Strategy
  DECEMBER 14, 2015
• An Inventor Walks Into a Bar: Risks of Filing a “Bar Napkin” Provisional Patent Application
  OCTOBER 6, 2015
• Going Global: Tips on Building a Patent Portfolio Outside the United States
  AUGUST 27, 2015
• Using Utility Models to Protect your Intellectual Property in Taiwan
  JUNE 9, 2015
• Teamwork Can Benefit Your Company’s Research, but Verify Inventors on any Resulting Patent Application
  APRIL 28, 2015
• Patenting Your Basement Fusion Reactor: Utility Requirements under U.S. Patent Law
  JANUARY 16, 2015
• Speeding Construction of Your Company’s ‘Great Wall’: Protecting Green Technology in China with Utility Models
  OCTOBER 24, 2014
• Take Off Every Zig: The Risk in Tesla’s 'All Our Patent Are Belong to You' Message
  JULY 11, 2014

• Former Chair of the Law School Outreach Program Subcommittee, American Intellectual Property Law Association

• Bar Association of Erie County

• Shakespeare in Delaware Park board of directors
• Secretary General, Belgian-American Chamber of Commerce
• Member, Buffalo-Lille Association