Jeffrey S. Whittle Image

Jeffrey S. Whittle

Partner

Womble Bond Dickinson

Jeff Whittle is a partner with Womble Bond Dickinson. He provides nearly 30 years of legal experience to clients in the energy and high-tech industries. He advises on strategic and complex technology merger & acquisition transactions, licensing, patent, trademark, and copyright protection, intellectual property portfolio analysis, and various other contentious and transactional matters, including inter partes reexaminations, post-grant reviews, and derivation proceedings, among other disputed cases. Jeffrey is Head of Womble Bond Dickinson’s Global Energy and Natural Resources Industry Sector and serves as Managing Partner of the firm’s Houston office.

Jeffrey has been recognized by Chambers USA, Best Lawyers in America, The Legal 500 United States, WIPR Leaders, and Client Choice, among others, for his outstanding work, career and contributions to law, technology, and intellectual property.  Additionally, he was awarded the Texas Trailblazer Award as a Texas Lawyer in 2019, he was the Frank Barnes Award Winner for LES USA/Canada in 2019, and he was named Global IP Attorney of the Year by Legal Era in 2018.

Jeffrey is the past president and chair of the Licensing Executives Society (LES) for the USA and Canada (2015-2016) and served on the LES Board for over seven years. He currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Americas Committee for Licensing Executives Society International (LESI). He also currently serves as Chair of the Certified License Professionals (CLP), a licensing certifying professional society. Jeffrey is a frequent and highly sought-after speaker and author, nationally and internationally, on various intellectual property/licensing/technology topics.

Jeffrey keeps up with the always changing intellectual property field through memberships in various legal and professional associations, including the American Intellectual Property Law Association, Federal Circuit Bar Association, and Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Certified Licensing Professionals, Inc., the Board of Visitors for Wake Forest University School of Law, the Advisory Council for the University of Houston Law Center Intellectual Property Institute, and the Advisory Board of the Institute for Energy Law. He also has served on the International Advisory Board of the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP), M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s Technology Review Committee, IP Law360’s Advisory Board, as well as on boards of various charitable organizations. Jeffrey is also a member of the Texas Bar College and the Texas Bar Foundation.

Recent Articles by Jeffrey S. Whittle

After Weber v. Provisur, Confidentiality Provisions May Not Be Sufficient to Protect Your Documents from Being Prior Art

On February 8, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision in Weber, Inc. v. Provisur Technologies, Inc., reversing the finding of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) that certain operating manuals with limited dissemination and confidentiality restrictions did not qualify as prior art. The Federal Circuit’s decision concluded that the Board misapplied the analysis for meeting the public accessibility standard for a printed publication to qualify as prior art.