Sunstein is thrilled to announce that partner John W. Powell has been named co-chair of the firm’s Patent Practice Group.

“John is a tremendous asset to our team and he will be a great co-chair of our Patent Practice Group,” said Kathryn E. Noll, chair of the group and member of the firm’s Management Committee. “John’s in-house experience and technical knowledge positions him well to help grow our practice and to continue to meet and exceed our clients’ business goals.”

Powell focuses his practice on patent portfolio management and strategy, patent prosecution, and IP transactional work, including drafting and negotiating IP licensing and development agreements and other commercial agreements having an IP component. Before joining Sunstein in January 2021, Powell served in-house for nearly two decades as vice president and general counsel of American Superconductor Corporation and as in-house counsel at companies including Raytheon and Motorola.

Powell also has extensive experience mentoring startup companies in the clean energy industry and is currently involved with Cleantech Open – Northeast, which is a competition and accelerator program with the mission to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with ideas to solve environmental and energy challenges.

Sunstein’s Patent Practice Group attorneys prosecute applications in a wide variety of technical areas for U.S. and international clients. In addition to preparing patent applications and advancing them to allowance and grant, the attorneys perform novelty, validity and freedom-to-operate searches; prepare clearance opinions; and handle appeals and other proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeals Board.