By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
When a physician approached patent attorney Bill Abbatt with an innovative method of placing stents in a patient, Abbatt spelled out what was involved, how long it would take, and how much money it would cost. Fresh from an expensive divorce, and burdened with a large mortgage, the physician thought his idea would die on the vine.
“But I wanted to help him cure people, improve their quality of life, and prolong their useful lives,” Abbatt says. “I introduced him to another client, a philanthropist, and the two formed a medical device company. I’m privileged to be their outside patent counsel, and I’m pleased I could help this physician take his early steps along the road to making his invention available, get him some recognition, and indirectly help the end patient.”
A shareholder with the intellectual property firm of Brooks Kushman in Southfield, where he has worked since 1986, Abbatt handles all aspects of domestic and foreign patent prosecution in a wide variety of technologies, including manufacturing, metallurgy, chemistry, medical devices, aeronautics, and several other engineering fields; and he is passionate about helping to create jobs.
“One of the things I really like to do is to work with emerging companies to offer cost effective advice on how they can achieve their business goals, and I’m in a unique position to be able to do that because of my professional skill set,” he says. “To succeed, the fledgling enterprise needs something new, a competitive edge, and something different which requires definition and legal protection, so it can discourage others from using a nifty idea without permission, or they have to pay for the privilege of using a tool from your tool bag,” he explains. “To get to that happy state of grace it would be great, in a perfect world, to have patents pending or issued that cover what it the company brings to the table.”
In one case, Abbatt helped obtain patent protection for a small company offering innovative ways to cost-effectively purify wastewater, particularly in under-developed countries and municipalities with limited budgets.
“The company created something that’s really needed – decent water,” he says.
A regular fixture on the Michigan Super Lawyers list, Abbatt also does patent work for large companies. For instance, he brought in an overseas client and put a group together (a “firm within a firm”) which provides U.S. patent needs for one of the world’s largest manufacturers of aircraft.
“That’s made life very interesting,” he says.
A member of the Federal Bar Association, he has served as co-chairman of the Intellectual Property Law Section, Eastern District of Michigan Chapter.
“We act as bridge between the bench and the bar,” he says. “We hold in-court sessions on what’s new in the various aspects of IP law, and we do what we can to help younger attorneys meet judges, so there’s a useful forum for the exchange of views on the practice of law.”
When Chief Judge Gerald Rosen of the U.S. District Court started the Michigan IP American Inns of Court (MIIPAIOC) a couple of years ago, Abbatt served on the steering committee, and currently serves as its secretary.
“It’s a foundation that offers assistance to less experienced lawyers who want to learn more about the practice of law, with civility – representing one’s client effectively without necessarily being a hard-ball litigator,” Abbatt explains. “We meet eight times a year. It’s a useful contribution to the practice of law.”
A council member of the Aviation Law Section of the State Bar of Michigan; a Fellow of the Michigan State Bar Foundation; and a former Master of the Bench (American Inns of Court – University of Detroit Chapter), this year, Abbatt was recognized as one of the top patent professionals in Michigan with an IAM Patent 1000 Award from Intellectual Asset Management Magazine.
A native of England’s Merseyside area, Abbatt earned a bachelor of science degree in metallurgy/materials sciences from Imperial College, London – now the University of London.
“I was interested in – and equally bad at – math, physics and chemistry,” he says. “Metallurgy/Materials Sciences requires exposure to each of those disciplines, so it was a natural fit.”
Following this with a master’s degree in business at the same university, he met the requirement for spending time in industry by working in a steel plant in Spain for 12 months.
“I did two very useful things,” he says. “I threw lots of coke into coke ovens and I immersed myself in the Spanish language.”
He “crossed the pond” in the late ‘60s to accept a job offer from Ford in Dearborn, under the Ford College Graduate Program; then set his sights on a law degree from the Detroit College of Law (now Michigan State University College of Law), where he enjoyed the downtown location, and his work as an editor of the law review.
“I felt that as a lawyer I would be in a better position to give back and help a larger slice of society than if I had a narrow focus in engineering,” he explains.
Working at Ford by day and studying law in evening classes was a real challenge, he notes.
“It made me very conscious of time management. And when you go to law school at night, you rub elbows with folks who are similarly situated – they have other responsibilities, they roll up their sleeves and get the job done. I respect that work ethic.”
Abbatt has since been on the other side of the lectern, teaching patent law as an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law.
“It was great to be able to spend time with those who wished to learn what is taught,” he says. “In my view, some law schools focus on what the student needs to pass the bar exam, and give short shrift to the real world of practicing law. The stuff they don’t teach you in law school is what you really need if you want to hit the ground running when you get your first job. I particularly enjoyed teaching patent law using real world, vivid examples taken from the experience of a practicing lawyer.”
A past chairman of the board of the Fairlane Club in Dearborn, former VP of the Dearborn Country Club, and former board member of Oakwood Hospital, Abbatt makes his home in Franklin, a village in Oakland County. His wife Candyce is a family lawyer, as is one of their daughters who practices law with her mother. Their other daughter is an intern/management trainee at General Electric in Milwaukee.
An avid reader, Abbatt also is a pilot. He took flying lessons at Pontiac Airport when he first came to the States, and earned just about all the ratings available to a non-military pilot, including commercial pilot, flight instructor, and airline transport pilot.
“By pursuing progressively higher ratings, I could sharpen my skill set and it’s been a real good investment,” he says.
Recently, he beat the I-75 traffic by flying to Mackinac Island in 1.3 hours in his Beechcraft Debonair. He has flown to many destinations in the U.S. and Canada, including Charleston, S.C., the Bahamas, Harbor Springs, Milwaukee, Toronto, Montreal, and London (Ontario).
He also enjoys golf, tennis, downhill skiing, and mountain climbing in Colorado.
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