Charlena L. Thorpe

Counsel

Charlena L. Thorpe is currently chief patent counsel for Townsend & Lockett’s intellectual property department.  Charlena Thorpe has solid experience representing clients in high-stakes, technically and legally complex patent litigation matters such as multiparty, multipatent infringement disputes in district courts and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). Charlena’s patent litigation experience is complemented by her patent prosecution experience in successfully drafting and prosecuting patent applications to issuance in a variety of technical areas in the electrical engineering field. Charlena obtained her patent drafting, prosecution, and litigation experience from the patent-specialty law firms of Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner, LLP and Sughrue Mion PLLC (formerly, Sughrue Mion Zinn McPeak & Seas, LLP) and from the general practice law firms of Alston & Bird LLP and Sutherland (formerly Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP).

Charlena was elected in 2006 to the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation and is a lecturer at the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she teaches a course on intellectual property and technology law, policy and management.

Charlena received her J.D. from Emory University School of Law in 2000 where she served as president of the Emory University School of Law Intellectual Property Society for three years. She received her B.E.E., with high honors, from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1994 and was elected to the Tau Beta Pi National Honor Society and the Eta Kappa Nu National Electrical Engineering Honor Society. Charlena also was awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and received her M.S.E.E. from Georgia Tech in 1995. While pursuing her graduate studies, Charlena worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA performing research in the area of digital signal processing of radar images and Motorola, Inc. in Libertyville, IL performing research in the area of integrated circuit design.

Charlena is registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a patent attorney and is admitted to the bars of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Supreme Court of Georgia, Court of Appeals of Georgia, and the state courts of Georgia.

Charlena is a member of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the State Bar of Georgia. She also is a member of the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law where she is Vice Chair of the Computer and Internet Legislation Committee and Chair of the Subcommittees on Reexamination Proceedings and KSR for the Patent Litigation Committee.

Recent Transactions

• Served as lead associate to lead outside counsel in patent infringement case involving embossed in register laminate flooring for one of the leading worldwide producers and distributors of flooring products.
• Developed noninfringement contentions for national wireless telecommunication provider in a multiparty, multipatent litigation patent infringement case involving Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.L.P.
• Served as lead associate to lead outside counsel for a global media and technology company in various multiparty, multipatent infringement cases involving cable television set-top boxes, satellite television services, and consumer electronics.
• Served as lead associate to lead outside counsel for one of the world’s largest generic pharmaceutical companies in a patent litigation case resulting from the filing of an abbreviated new drug application with the FDA (ANDA litigation).
• Successfully prosecuted patent applications to issuance in a variety of technical areas in the electrical engineering field.
• Represented the world’s leading mobile phone supplier and a leading supplier of mobile and fixed telecom networks in ITC litigation.