people

Vermette & Co.

Lawyers at Vermette & Co regularly draft patent applications in fields such as chemistry, electronics, communications chip design, software, internet applications and a host of other areas. Each lawyer in the firm vets his/her work with other lawyers in the firm in order to both check the initial approach and to polish the final work product. This team approach helps produce a consistent high quality of work.

The legal assistants at Vermette & Co. are all graduates of a rigorous two year legal assistant program at Capilano College and have graduated near the top of their class. They have also undergone intense on-the-job training. As a result they are equipped to handle challenging legal issues under the supervision of the lawyers. They provide a valuable service at a lower cost than would be the case if their work were handled by our lawyers.

Our people are shown below:

Clifford W. Vermette

Dr. Vermette graduated in Engineering Physics at the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Alberta. Following his Ph.D. he went to work in the Engineering Physics Department at Schlumberger Well Services in Houston, Texas where he worked on a thermal decay time logging tool and a nuclear magnetic resonance logging tool. He later joined a startup electronics firm as Vice President of engineering where he designed power supplies and analog computers for such companies as Texas Instruments and Schlumberger. Following the latter job he entered law school at U.B.C. and began his career first in civil litigation and then in Intellectual Property. He has worked for the largest intellectual property firm in Canada and as a patent attorney for Texas Instruments. Following 6 years as a partner with a large B.C. law firm he founded the present firm. He is a registered patent and trade-mark agent and has extensive experience in semiconductor chip design applications, optical electronics and a host of other areas. He is a member of the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada, the Canadian Bar Association and is registered to practice both before the Canadian Patent and Trade-mark Office and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Email: cliff@vermetteco.com

Denis O'Brien

Dr. O’Brien is a U.S. Patent Attorney admitted to practice before all Virginia State Courts, the U.S. District Court of Virginia, and the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Virginia with two years of postdoctoral work in neurosciences at Harvard University. Dr. O’Brien spent 9 years as a Professor at the National School of Pharmacy in Wellington, New Zealand in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology as head of the department. He is experienced in litigating in both trial and appellate courts in Virginia as well as Appeal Boards in both patent and trademark cases. Dr. O’Brien was in private practice in the U.S. in intellectual property from 1998 to 2006. Email: dobrien@vermetteco.com