Michael Dilworth

Michael Dilworth is the founder and managing partner of Dilworth IP, an intellectual property law firm he launched in January 2007 to serve as a strategic partner to innovative companies navigating the evolving IP landscape. For nearly two decades, he has led the firm with a clear mission: help clients transform innovation into business value through practical, forward-looking IP strategy.

With over 30 years of experience, Michael brings a rare combination of legal depth, technical fluency, and commercial instinct. Before founding Dilworth IP, he served as chief intellectual property counsel for a publicly traded industrial company with more than $1.5 billion in annual revenue. There, he built and led the in-house IP function, directed a global patent and trademark portfolio, and helped senior leadership integrate IP into core business decisions.

That experience shaped the firm’s founding philosophy: intellectual property should be treated as a strategic asset, not a legal formality. Today, Michael applies that principle across industries—working with general counsel, CFOs, and business leaders to craft IP strategies that support growth, mitigate risk, and strengthen market position.

Michael is a trusted advisor across the full IP lifecycle, including U.S. and international patent and trademark prosecution, portfolio management, licensing and transactional IP, post-grant proceedings, freedom-to-operate analysis, and global enforcement. His international experience includes Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) filings, European Patent Office proceedings, and inter partes actions such as oppositions, nullity actions, and cancellations.

Above all, clients value Michael’s ability to cut through complexity, align IP protection with business goals, and provide practical, executive-level insight when the stakes are high.