Robert “Bob” J. Starr

Robert (Bob) Starr is a partner at Taylor English and a member of the firm’s Intellectual Property Department. A registered patent lawyer, Mr. Starr has more than 20 years of experience preparing and prosecuting patents, managing patent and trademark portfolios, drafting and negotiating licensing agreements, and supervising patent infringement claims.

Mr. Starr’s legal career began as a patent attorney at a boutique law firm in Metro Atlanta. Here, he gained experience working with telecommunications clients on preparing and prosecuting patent applications primarily related to networking technology, such as cable TV, distribution facilities, cable modems, digital video cable systems, and DSL modems and network architectures. From there, Mr. Starr served as Director of Patent Development for AT&T/Bellsouth Intellectual Property Corp.; Intellectual Property Counsel with Landis+Gyr Inc.; and spent more than 10 years as Senior Patent Counsel with ARRIS Group Inc.

While in-house, Mr. Starr gained extensive experience managing patent litigation matters in Federal District Courts and inter partes review petitions in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. He counsels clients on litigation defense strategies aimed at minimizing risks and costs while achieving business goals. Mr. Starr is experienced at reviewing communications technology standards to analyze or develop patent infringement/non-infringement arguments and positions.

While Mr. Starr’s legal practice both in-house and at law firms has focused on telecommunications equipment makers and service providers, even prior to attending law school, Mr. Starr had been employed in various engineering and technical roles including pre-sales system engineering, software development, and network application testing for communication equipment manufacturers, telecommunications software companies, and network service providers. Combining career experience prior to law school and over 20 years as an attorney, Mr. Starr has worked in or with telecommunications and computer networking businesses for over 30 years.

Affiliations

• State Bar of Georgia, Member: Antitrust Law Section; Business Law Section; Intellectual Property Law Section; Privacy & Technology Law Section