John O’Rourke is a registered patent attorney with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office who has attained Senior Member status in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He serves as a key member of WHGC’s Intellectual Property Group. Mr. O’Rourke earned his J.D. from Temple University School of Law and received his M.S. and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Villanova University. His areas of practice include matters related to technology and intellectual property law with emphasis in the areas of patent assertion, validity, right-to-use, claim coverage, infringement and enforcement, strategic foreign patent filing, design patents, trademark selection, and the identification and preservation of trade secrets.
Mr. O’Rourke has a reputation for tackling complex cases, and has prepared over 500 original U.S. patent applications across a spectrum of technical disciplines. In 1998, Mr. O’Rourke prosecuted the first social network news aggregator technology with one of the largest search engine websites in the 1990s. This technology remains critical to certain search engine platforms today. In another notable example, Mr. O’Rourke was responsible for drafting the patent for the current air traffic control system which monitors airport air and ground traffic. This system is now owned by Northrop Grumman’s aerospace sector. It is mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration to be present in all large airports and nationwide.
His industries of experience include semiconductor and optical devices, materials and fabrication, computer, communication and network components, interfaces, systems, and protocols, adaptive and multidimensional signal processing architectures and techniques, coding and error-correction devices and protocols, embedded systems and multimode human-computer interfaces, operating systems, compilers, and applications programs, biometric, cryptographic, and secure communication systems, biomedical and radiological devices, biological and molecular computing, safety devices, shredding and comminuting systems, simple mechanical devices, optics and cameras.
Prior to practicing as an attorney, Mr. O’Rourke served as a Research Engineer at Villanova University where he developed unique solutions for Space Systems Division of the General Electric Corporation. Well-versed with the medical and healthcare industries, Mr. O’Rourke has more than 20 years of experience as a Clinical Research Nurse where he worked with medical devices, medical research protocols, and drug and device studies, and the like. In 1998, he was awarded the John J. Gallen Memorial Award at Villanova University in recognition of his contributions to the fields of healthcare, computer engineering, telecommunications, aerospace, and intellectual property. He is the first attorney to ever receive that award.
