Ahsan Shaikh

Ahsan Shaikh serves as the head of McDermott Will & Emery’s Patent Prosecution practice. He focuses his practice on strategic patent portfolio management and client counseling for computer-related technology companies. Ahsan is regularly called upon to:

• Determine whether a new feature, product or idea can and should be patented
• Apply the latest in analytics to improve examination efficiency, increase positive outcomes and reduce cost associated with prosecuting a portfolio of patent applications at the USPTO
• Create a bespoke and inclusive patent program for a company
• Assess the direction in which a company should take their patent portfolio
• Identify a competitor’s position and strength with respect to patents
• Evaluate a patent portfolio that is the subject of acquisition
• Provide advice on how to avoid infringing competitor/third party patents
• Audit a company’s intellectual property assets and processes

Ahsan is nationally and internationally recognized for both his strategic legal counsel and his client service.  Intellectual Asset Magazine has repeatedly identified Ahsan as a “World’s Leading Patent Professional,” stating that “[h]is clever application of analytics enables him to identify which arguments… are most effective before different examiners, making his advice gold dust to software companies.” Ahsan was nominated by corporate counsel as the California patent attorney recipient of the international Lexology Client Choice award for “stand[ing] apart for … excellent client care [and] an ability to add real value to clients’ business above and beyond the other players in the market.”

Leveraging his computer science background, Ahsan has successfully represented clients with technology in areas that include artificial intelligence and machine learning, graphical user interfaces, data processing, data analytics, social networking, cloud storage and services, software as a service, web applications, online advertisements and advertisement exchanges, video games, 3D systems, e-commerce websites, network connectivity, network security, network protocols, embedded systems, semiconductor design, satellite and laser systems design, medical devices, medical device software, insurance systems and automobile design.

Ahsan speaks on issues related to software patents, computer hardware, the internet, open source, and the video game/interactive entertainment software industry. He has written several articles on the legal issues faced by the software and video game industries, including pieces published in Forbes, Bloomberg, the National Law Journal and the San Francisco Daily Journal. He has also been quoted on these topics in publications such as Variety Magazine and for Reuters.

Ahsan actively promotes corporate and innovation diversity. In his work within and outside the Firm, Ahsan focuses on helping combat the gender, racial, and ethnic disparity in patent application filings and issuances within organizations, increasing potential innovation output. To support these efforts, Ahsan serves as part of a team at the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) developing a toolkit to better engage women inventors, and is currently working with Facebook to improve its diversity in innovation program to better engage more diverse employees in the patenting process. The Firm’s patent team supporting Meta has been ranked by Meta several times as their most diverse outside large law firm patent counsel. Ahsan is also working with the company to launch the United States Intellectual Property Alliance’s (USIPA) first Diversity in Innovation Conference.

Prior to practicing law, he gained practical computer industry experience in software coding and web development by working as a web developer.