Timothy J Powell
UK & European Patent Attorney
Tim is a qualified Patent Attorney with nearly forty years of experience, predominantly focussed in the food processing, metallurgy, signal processing, engineering, medical technology and automotive sectors. Tim also is a qualified trade mark attorney although he does not practise in this area.
Throughout his career Tim has gained extensive experience in the drafting, filing and prosecution of patent and registered design applications. He also is highly practised in EPO opposition and appeal work, strategy counselling, due diligence activity and numerous aspects of IP rights enforcement.
After stepping away from traditional private firm practice at the end of 2023 Tim joined Two IP in order to provide a more dedicated IP service for high-tech clients, in the UK and internationally, that have clear strategic aims.
Career History
Tim’s early professional experience was in manufacturing environments in a multinational packaging corporation and in an owner-managed electronics engineering company. During this time Tim benefitted from practical engineering training at the Colchester Institute of Higher Education, and management exposure in highly automated factories.
Following his undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Southampton, Tim trained at two well-known IP firms in London before embarking on a 28-year career in a leading firm located in the English Midlands. In 2004 he passed with commendation the Nottingham Law School Postgraduate Certificate and in 2005 the related LLM degree, both in Intellectual Property Litigation. These qualifications together with Tim’s experience allowed him to be among the first UK patent attorneys to qualify as litigators.
Subsequently, in 2013, Tim became one of just a handful of UK patent attorneys to qualify in Advocacy, providing him with rights of representation up to the level of the UK Supreme Court.
Technical Expertise / Areas of Specialism
Subject areas covered include automotive electronics; automotive engineering and control laws; encryption of mobile telephony and multimedia data/signals; spectrum sensing equipment; miniature antennae; liquid crystal devices and materials; metal alloys; process plant (especially food and packaging systems; foundry and other metal production systems); civil engineering components including municipal castings; medical injection, surgery, inhalation delivery and diagnostics devices; electronic shelf labels; nanoengineering manipulators; tissue cultivation apparatuses; oilfield logging tools and conveyance; drilling systems; geoscience data processing; acoustic, nuclear and electrical geology signal processing; agricultural vehicle sub-systems; engine technology; vehicle transmissions; and mining and tunnelling machinery.
Professional Qualifications
- Chartered Patent Attorney
- European Patent Attorney
- Registered Trade Mark Attorney
- European Trade Mark Attorney
- Patent Attorney Litigator
- Patent Attorney Advocate
- Trade Mark Attorney Litigator
- Trade Mark Attorney Advocate
Education
- BSc (Hons) Mechanical Engineering, University of Southampton (1986)
- Postgraduate Certificate in Intellectual Property Litigation, Nottingham Law School (2004)
- LLM in Intellectual Property Litigation, Nottingham Law School (2005)
Volunteer experience
- For over 20 years Tim has been a Council or committee member within the European Patents Institute, working chiefly in professional ethics, by-laws drafting, institutional finance and professional indemnity insurance areas.
- Tim has lectured and presented extensively on aspects of intellectual property to professional and student audiences in the UK, Mainland Europe, China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the US.
- Tim has authored or co-authored numerous articles on intellectual property subjects.
- He volunteers in his local community by chairing various meetings in his small village in Nottinghamshire. Through this Tim acts as the village’s primary liaison in dealings with elected representatives and local government officers.
- Tim is an occasional contributor to the website of Heart Valve Voice (www.heartvalvevoice.com), a charity assisting and representing valvular heart disease patients.
- Tim has judged high-level student competitions in ethics and provided career mentoring to students seeking careers in legal practice. He has successfully trained and mentored several trainees in the patent attorneys’ industry.
Interests
Away from work Tim enjoys watching live sport (especially cricket, rugby and cycling); participating in sportive (i.e. non-competitive) cycling events; long-distance hiking; bodyweight training; eating out (as an antidote to all the exercise); and listening to various styles of music.