Bio

John Shimmick is a partner in the Palo Alto office of FisherBroyles, where his practice focuses on patent prosecution and counseling designed to help his clients protect their intellectual property rights both domestically and internationally. He regularly works with his clients to conduct patentability, freedom-to-operate, and patent validity analyses, and he also prepares and prosecutes patent applications. John has experience with appeals, reexaminations, litigation support, and opposition proceedings. In addition to protecting intellectual property rights, John has experience with investor due diligence and financing. He frequently advises clients in connection with various rounds of financing, acquisitions and IPOs. John has a broad technical background and has worked as a patent attorney in several technical fields, including software, optical systems, mechanical devices, laser ablation systems, telemetry, semiconductor manufacturing, and test equipment. He has worked extensively in the medical device sector, including medical instrumentation, implantable devices, healthcare information technology, surgical robotics, tissue ablation systems, medical imaging, hearing devices, ophthalmology, orthopedics, cardiology and orthodontics. John was a patent agent prior to entering law school. Before entering the legal profession, John worked for more than a decade in the medical device industry, holding positions in engineering and management. While at VISX Inc., John developed laser delivery systems and ablation algorithms and was involved intimately with the evolution of LASIK, from blind-eye studies to FDA-approved wavefront guided LASIK. This work led to the successful treatment of millions of eyes, and John is the named inventor or co-inventor on over 40 issued patents worldwide. His background of successful engineering and intellectual property law gives him a unique perspective and ability to work with clients.