Frederick H. Gribbell — GRIBBELL LAW FIRM, LLC

Professional History

Engineering College

Fred Gribbell attended the University of Cincinnati (UC), and graduated with a B.S.E.E. degree. UC is a co-op school; all ‘day’ engineering students are required to co-op for seven ‘work’ quarters, which when combined with twelve ‘school’ quarters, takes five years to graduate. Fred’s co-op job was with Ford Motor Company (see below). Fred made Dean’s List several times, and was inducted into the Eta Kappa Nu honor society. Fred was also a student member of IEEE (the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers), and is now a Life Member of IEEE.

Design Engineer

Fred was a design engineer for several years before going to law school. One of his early projects was to create the software for a programmable controller that was installed at Kings Island (near Cincinnati) to control the trains on the “Twin Racers” roller coaster. This was the first solid-state control system used at Kings Island on a ride, and replaced a large control panel that was full of electro-mechanical industrial grade relays. Since the roller coaster’s controller cycled through every relay each time a train ran over the roller coaster track, those electro-mechanical relays wore out quickly, even though they were essentially the most durable and reliable relays then available. The solid state programmable controller had no moving parts, so it would last ‘forever,’ in theory. Fred also designed electronic controls for some of the other rides at Kings Island and for Kings Dominion (near Richmond, Virginia).

Later, Fred worked for a couple different small control systems companies, building supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and was a project leader for some fairly complex installations. One such system was installed at Indian Hills Water Treatment Plant (near Cincinnati), which replaced old, mostly manually-operated control systems, and automated (in real time) the action of well pumps that controlled the amount of water being pumped from several underground wells, and also automated the action of the high service pumps that controlled the amount of water being pumped into the distribution system, and controlled the water level in the city’s remote elevated tank.

Another SCADA system was installed at Anaheim Hilton, a very large hotel in Anaheim, California, just a few blocks from Disneyland. The Anaheim Hilton project controlled four large chillers and several high services pumps mounted in the basement of the hotel, which pumped potable water and chilled water to the (15) various floors of the hotel. The hotel was so large (an entire city block square) that each floor had its own large air handler, and the basement control system remotely controlled each of those air handlers, so as to provide the correct amount of chilled water, per floor of the building. Each air handler also had its own programmable controller to regulate in real time the positioning of the control valves for the air handlers (both for chilled water and for hot water).

It turns out that writing detailed Operation Manuals for computerized control systems was really good preparation for writing patent applications, particularly for various computerized inventions. For example, each of the SCADA systems had a computer keyboard and a display monitor; the keyboard was used to enter commands to check system status, to review system past performance, and to generate reports about system performance. In addition, the keyboard could be used to enter various control system commands, such as running a particular pump or chiller in manual mode, or to shut down a particular pump or chiller. Each SCADA system always had several such pumps and/or motors that needed to be controlled, in real time. Regardless of the exact system layout, a detailed Operations Manual needed to be prepared for each jobsite; no two jobsites were ever the same.

During his engineering career, Fred also worked for OPW Division of Dover Corporation, where he was a Senior Project Engineer in the design engineering department. Fred worked on new designs for optical liquid level sensors (“OLLS”), and for new remote monitors for those OLLS sensors. The OLLS sensors were used to detect gasoline level in both large oil tanks (at stationary tank farms) and in mobile tank trucks that brought gasoline from the tank farms to gas stations all over the country. The OLLS sensors used low-power electronic circuits to send infrared (IR) light through a first fiber optic cable, then to a prism, through the prism, and then to a second fiber optic cable to a photosensor. If the gasoline level in the tank reached as high as the sensor, the IR light would refract into the gasoline, instead of bouncing (reflecting) back inside the prism. That change in signal amplitude was detected by the electronics, and would shut down the pump that was filling the tank. In essence, these sensors were designed to prevent overfills at tank loading stations. (Nobody wants to see a gas truck spill hundreds of gallons of gasoline all over itself.) The original design work was done by Honeywell in Toronto, Canada, and Fred’s design team created updated mechanical and electronic designs for greater reliability and for multiplexing monitor systems.

Also of note: Fred’s co-op job while attending the Engineering College at the University of Cincinnati was with Ford Motor Company, in the Transmission and Chassis Division of Ford. Fred learned from Ford’s design engineers how hydraulic systems and other various components work in an automatic transmission, which in those days, was completely a mechanical device—i.e., with no electronic sensors or controllers. (Well, the transmission had a “neutral sensing switch” but that was the only electrical component in the entire device.) That experience in working with sophisticated mechanical designs has been valuable in Fred’s later career.

Law School

Fred attended Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University (NKU). Fred was a night student, since he was also working full time as an engineer while attending Chase. His status as a night student, and full-time engineer, prevented Fred from participating in some of the law school optional programs that typically took place during normal daytime working hours. However, Fred was on the NKU Law Review for two years, first as a researcher, and then as an editor. Fred also excelled in his legal studies, graduating Magna Cum Laude.

Fred knew all along that he was headed toward a legal career as a patent attorney, although he was also quite interested in Products Liability Law and in Corporations Law as potential career paths. Fred was quite fortunate in that his older brother had been close friends with Gibson Yungblut, who was a Patent Attorney at Frost & Jacobs, one of Cincinnati’s largest law firms. Before Fred started at Chase Law School, Gib invited Fred to meet with two other patent attorneys at the Frost firm (Jim Liles and Jim Hayes) to discuss a potential legal career, and they provided Fred with a personal touch of what it would be like working as a patent attorney in a large law firm. All this was exceeding valuable ‘input’ for Fred, and he later worked at Frost & Jacobs (with Gib and Jim and Jim) after graduating from Chase.

Since Fred knew he was going to become a Patent Attorney, he took the U.S. Patent and Trademark (PTO) exam to become a registered Patent Agent while he was still attending law school. By doing so, Fred did not need to ‘worry’ about studying and taking that onerous PTO exam later, and once he passed the Ohio bar exam, Fred automatically became eligible to become a PTO registered Patent Attorney.

Patent Attorney

Fred started his legal career at Frost & Jacobs as an Associate Attorney. Since he had already passed the PTO exam, Fred quickly became a PTO registered Patent Attorney less than six months after taking the Ohio bar exam. Fred immediately began drafting patent applications after starting at the Frost law firm; he wrote an entire patent application during his first week at Frost. Fred also worked to assist on various litigations being handled by partners in the Frost patent department.

Fred’s work, as one might expect of an electrical engineer, concentrated on drafting patent applications for both mechanical and electronic inventions, and more particularly on inventions involving computers. Fred also spent a good deal of time drafting and reviewing software license agreements, including quite sophisticated contracts for very large computer systems (some using mainframe computers).

Fred worked at the Frost law firm for over six years, during which time he drafted over 100 patent applications. Fred then left the Frost firm to form a two-man patent law firm called Davidson & Gribbell, with an office in Blue Ash, Ohio (a suburb of Cincinnati). After about five years, Fred formed his own solo practice in a new law firm called Frederick H. Gribbell, LLC, which is his present law firm. Today, Fred’s son Russell Gribbell is also working as a Patent Attorney in this law firm. Fred is now up to over 300 patent applications prepared and filed in the U.S. PTO.

Fred’s early work for clients of Frost & Jacobs is a little hard to find in the PTO records, mainly because the name of the “Firm or Agent” was always listed as Frost & Jacobs, not Fred Gribbell! On the other hand, there are almost 200 patents listed in the PTO records as having “Gribbell” as the “Firm or Agent,” which are mainly based on newer patent applications after Fred left the Frost law firm.

Over the years, Fred has drafted patent applications for some of Cincinnati’s finest and best-known companies. This includes clients such as Proctor & Gamble, International Paper Company, CollegeView Partners, Unosource Controls, University of Cincinnati, Nexicor (part of Senco), DuraSpin (part of Senco), Senco Products (now known as Kyocera Senco), Cincinnati Milacron, Baldwin Piano and Organ, and SentriLock. Fred has also drafted patent applications for other fine companies located in the Cincinnati region, including Lexmark International, and Apache Technologies (now part of Trimble, Inc., formerly Trimble Navigation).

Fred’s work for Lexmark included some very sophisticated inventions, used in laser printers and ink jet printers. Some of this work was quite challenging, including software-type inventions in which the inventors were Ph.Ds. Fred became a virtual expert on software inventions for ‘halftoning’ images, in which multibit digital image data for thousands of pixels is converted into single-digit binary data for each of those pixel positions, which are to be printed on paper to re-create the original image, with a minimum of visual artifacts. Of course, the hard part of such image-rendering software is to ‘invent’ it in the first place, as a workable and successful product. But drafting patent applications for such complex software was usually difficult, and understanding the pertinent prior art (often from Japanese patent applications) was no easy matter. Lexmark’s engineers were great to work with, however, and often made these complex inventions a joy to work with.

Fred’s early work for Apache Technologies (now part of Trimble) involved laser receivers used on construction jobsites. After Apache merged into Trimble, Fred worked with a larger group of engineers in Dayton, Ohio, and they came up with a pioneering invention used for laying out specific points of interest on construction jobsite floors. This invention uses visible vertical ‘planes’ of laser light from two different laser transmitters that are aimed at the point of interest. The visible laser planes create bright laser light lines on the jobsite floor, and where the two laser light lines intersect is the point of interest. This invention seems simple in concept, but nobody had ever done anything like it before, and Trimble is now selling these systems. Everyone who uses this invention thinks it is (simply) brilliant in concept.

Fred’s early work for DuraSpin involved various inventions for automatic screw guns. At first glance, such a product may not seem much like a complex invention, but to make these hand tools into reliable, robust, and affordable products is no mean feat. These screw guns first must be ‘loaded’ with a collated strip of screws, and that strip is directed into the front end of the tool. When the tool is pressed against the workpiece to be fastened, a drive bit must be both rotated and pushed into the head of the ‘lead screw’—and this action must be simultaneous and automatic. In other words, the human user is not touching the screwstrip while this occurs. DuraSpin’s design engineers have made further improvements on the original screw gun designs, and Fred has worked with those engineers to draft and file their patent applications for almost 20 years, as of today. (DuraSpin® is a product line of Kyocera Senco.)

Fred is also performing patent work for Kyocera Senco’s line of nail-driving tools, including a pioneering invention called “FUSION®”. The FUSION tool is a cordless nail driving tool that requires no air hose, even though it uses gas pressure to drive the nail. The pressurized gas is stored in a chamber that provides high pressure to a piston that forces a driver blade to push a nail (or staple) into the workpiece being fastened. After ‘shooting’ a nail, most ‘air’ tools exhaust their high pressure air to atmosphere, which means that those tools then need a brand new charge of high pressure air to ‘shoot’ the next nail—but not a FUSION tool! In a FUSION tool, the pressurized gas is not exhausted, but is instead retained by the tool. A ‘lifter’ mechanically forces the piston back to its ‘ready’ position, using a battery-powered motor for propulsion. This makes the FUSION tool both portable and self-contained (wireless and hose-less). It is a brilliant invention, and Fred has been involved with all the patent applications for this line of tools.

Another innovative product Fred has been involved with is an electronic lockbox made by SentriLock, LLC of Cincinnati, Ohio. This product is less than 20 years old, but it has become established as one of the two best-known (and used) electronic lockbox products in the United States. And SentriLock has not been standing still with their lockbox design. They already made a radical design change several years ago, and are now working on yet another radical design change. Their robust and cost-effective designs have performed brilliantly, and Fred has been involved with all the patent applications for this product line.

Finally: Fred has had the good fortune to work on patents for some of his UC engineering college classmates. His lifelong friend, Bruce Corso, has been an innovator for automatic control systems in the water distribution industry for decades. Fred worked for Bruce as a design engineer (see above, regarding the SCADA systems), and after becoming a patent attorney, Fred again worked for Bruce to draft his patent applications. Fred also drafted patent applications for Baldwin Piano and Organ Company, and one of his inventors at Baldwin was David Wade, another former classmate at UC. It’s too bad that Fred was not able to work on more musical instrument patents, since both Fred and Bruce are musicians, too. Unfortunately, Baldwin ran into financial difficulties years ago, and stopped inventing new instruments.

Today

Fred’s law firm handles all forms of intellectual property, including copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, and patents. Right now, most of Fred’s work involves patents, mainly because his clients keep him busy with that very specialized and demanding task. Fred provides counseling to his clients on patentability, patent clearance, and patent infringement—both to avoid infringement and to analyze possible infringement by others of his clients’ rights. Fred also provides similar counseling on trademark and copyright matters, but to a lesser extent of his time, lately. Fred’s law firm also performs due diligence studies for acquisitions that involve intellectual property, when needed.

Sometimes a client asks for an opinion on the ‘state of the art.’ This usually occurs when a client is considering entering a new product arena, and wants to know whether there are third party patents that might make such a product entry difficult, if not impossible. Fred’s law firm handles such exacting studies, with typical diligence and thoroughness.

Many of Fred’s clients over the years have asked him to prepare and file PCT ‘international’ patent applications, which has become a standard operating procedure for larger clients. Fred also works with Foreign Associates to obtain foreign patents, usually by filing “National Stage” applications that are based on a PCT application. Fred works on a regular basis with Foreign Associates that cover most of the major countries of the world.

Fred has filed dozens of U.S. trademark applications for various clients, including clients that sell software-related products. Some of these trademarks have been challenged in the courts, and some have been involved with opposition proceedings in the PTO, and Fred was involved in those cases, every step of the way. Fred has also been involved with many foreign trademark applications, including Madrid Protocol international trademark applications.

As noted above, Fred has filed over 300 U.S. patent applications, plus additional PCT and other directly-filed foreign patent applications. Most of these U.S. applications have been ‘utility’ patent applications, but Fred has also filed many ‘design’ patent applications. Fred has had to appeal a few of his patent applications at the PTO’s Board of Appeals (now called the “PTAB”). So far, Fred has been 100% successful at winning those appeals for his clients.

More recently, Fred has undergone a peer review by Martindale-Hubbell, the famous attorney rating company. Fred now has an “AV” rating by the Martindale people, which is the highest possible rating for experienced attorneys.