Dan Thornton > Mewburn Ellis LLP > Manchester, England > Lawyer Profile

Dan Thornton

+44 (0)161 247 7722 dan.thornton@mewburn.com View profile View profile

Work Department

Engineering

Position

Partner, Patent Attorney

Career

Dan works on all aspects of the patent application process in the mechanical, electronics, and engineering sectors. This includes patent drafting and prosecution. He is also experienced in providing freedom to operate opinions and the freedom to operate process.

Unusually for a private practice attorney Dan has undertaken a long-term client secondment. During that time he helped to set up an in-house department, and effectively worked as an in-house attorney. For example, he has gained extensive experience in developing IP strategies, invention capture and IP protection processes, along with management of large-scale Freedom to Operate (“FTO”) projects.

The secondment experience has given Dan a rare insight into the commercial, legal, and technical challenges faced by a large engineering R & D centre and a unique understanding of the business drivers. This provides him with a depth of real world understanding not often found in a private practice attorney.

Areas of Expertise

• Consumer electronic devices and associated products, including control electronics and firmware, hardware, performance, and wireless connectivity.
• Machine learning, including neural networks
• Cyber security, including block chain
• Automotive technology, including automated driving

Dan has worked with UK and European SME’s in the fields of spectrometry, vehicle safety systems, and automated driving innovation. More recently his main client has been a Multinational consumer product / technology company.

He joined Mewburn Ellis LLP in 2013, qualifying as a European Patent Attorney in 2017 and as a Chartered Patent Attorney in 2021. He has a Postgraduate Certificate in IP from Queen Mary University. He joined the partnership in 2022.

Education

Dan has an MPhys degree (2008) in physics and PhD in astrophysics (2013) both from the University of Manchester. Between degrees he worked as a scientist at a defence technology company. 

During his PhD Dan used supercomputing facilities to confirm a new class of astrophysical radio source. This result was published in Science magazine, and has since been cited over 500 times.