Christopher C. Johns

On the prosecution and client counseling side, Chris has experience drafting, prosecuting, and appealing patent applications related to electronics, software, telecommunications, shipping and logistics, and business methods. He provides domestic and international clients with strategic IP counseling, including portfolio management and drafting strategies. Chris has a particular focus on patent eligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 and speaks and writes regularly about this dynamic topic. He co-authored and co-edited a book on subject matter eligibility, a work that covers issues relating to eligibility in more than a dozen countries.

Chris has extensive experience with inter partes reviews (IPR) and covered business method (CBM) proceedings before the PTAB of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), district court litigations, and ITC investigations. His litigation experience extends to pre-trial investigations through trial and appeal. Chris has litigated cases relating to telecommunications, storage systems, display screens and televisions, medical devices, computer software, household goods, and other technologies.

Before joining Finnegan, Chris served for nearly five years as a USPTO patent examiner. He examined patent applications related to cryptography, network communication devices, healthcare systems, financial transaction processing, postage metering systems, and electronic content licensing.

Chris’s pro bono activities include representing asylum seekers before immigration courts through Human Rights First and assisting veterans with appeals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.