Mr. Byorick’s practice is primarily concerned with obtaining patents for corporate clients in the computer, electronics, and telecommunications industries. His patent experience includes the crafting and prosecution of patents in the areas of Internet-related technologies and related business methods, software applications, computer systems, networking, digital electronics, semiconductor devices, computer peripheral devices and optics. In addition to his patent-related experience, he has counseled clients in a broad range of intellectual property law. He has also drafted patent infringement opinions for companies including Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard Laboratories.
Mr. Byorick was Microsoft Corporation’s fourth patent attorney, responsible for handling intellectual property matters for their Internet and Developers Divisions. As in-house counsel, he had extensive experience in the area of protection of intellectual property, including determining patent filing strategies, working with engineering staff to prioritize patentable ideas and reviewing work of outside counsel. While working at Microsoft, he created Microsoft’s Patent Claims Drafting Guidelines for Outside Counsel, and was invited to participate in the Microsoft Distinguished Lecturer series. Prior to his corporate work, Michael was an associate with the patent law firm of Duft, Graziano and Forest in Boulder, Colorado.
Over fifteen years of engineering experience has provided Mr. Byorick with a diverse background in the telecommunications, computer and electrical engineering areas. He developed one of the first user-programmable PC’s in 1977 and created the Bell Business Basic programming language while at AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he also worked in the area of network planning. He previously worked as Senior Systems Analyst for Sperry Univac Minicomputer Division and as a consultant for Colorado Computing Consortium.
