Hugh Barnhardt

Hugh Barnhardt is a registered patent lawyer with more than 30 years of in-house and law firm experience in various aspects of intellectual property and technology law. Mr. Barnhardt focuses on patent and technology licensing, IP strategy, and patent portfolio development. Prior to Taylor English, he worked for a Fortune 100 telecommunication equipment manufacturer.

Mr. Barnhardt has extensive experience providing intellectual property support for companies involved in product development. This includes inbound patent and technology-related licensing, with an emphasis on patent pools and standards-based technologies involved in the video and wireless communications sectors. He has also addressed a broad range of other intellectual property-related issues, such as ownership of intellectual property in the context of joint development, IP indemnification, infringement analysis, product clearance, license compliance, and patent portfolio development. In addition, Mr. Barnhardt has successfully managed outbound patent licensing programs that generated annual multimillion-dollar royalty revenues from patent pools.

During his career, Mr. Barnhardt served ten years as Assistant General Patent Counsel and Director of Intellectual Property for Scientific-Atlanta, Inc. In that role, he managed patent prosecution, nondisclosure agreements, patent portfolio development, licensing, disputes and other intellectual property issues. When Scientific-Atlanta was acquired by Cisco Systems, Inc., Mr. Barnhardt’s role became more focused on intellectual property and technology transactions associated with the technologies used by several of Cisco’s businesses. Prior to his in-house roles at Cisco and Scientific-Atlanta, Mr. Barnhardt was an associate at a mid-size intellectual property firm in Atlanta, where he prepared and prosecuted patent applications for a variety of clients.

Affiliations

• Buckhead Church, Volunteer with students with special needs