Dan O'Connor

I'll research this attorney before drafting. Note the name is common, so I'll need to disambiguate carefully.

Dan O'Connor — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus. Dan O'Connor is a patent prosecutor and portfolio counselor rather than a courtroom-first litigator. His Alston & Bird practice description centers on patent solicitation, patentability and freedom-to-operate analysis, and portfolio management, with stated technical emphases in high-tech software (IoT devices, machine-learning systems, database management, encryption and authentication, messaging applications, healthcare management), electromechanical devices, industrial manufacturing processes, power-storage/battery technologies, and Internet-connected hardware, plus mechanical and medical-device work. He also does IP-side transaction work, including serving as IP team lead on an acquisition and as patent advisor on M&A deals. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering, which aligns with the electromechanical/mechanical component of that docket.

Side preference. The tracked record contains a single litigation appearance, on the plaintiff side and as back-up counsel (Universal Electronics, Inc. v. Roku, Inc.). That is too thin a sample to characterize him as either a defense-side or plaintiff-side litigator. What the broader record does show is that his contested work runs heavily through the patent-owner side: his firm write-up lists "representing patent owners defending issued patents in inter partes review and post grant review proceedings," and his PTAB appearances are on patent-owner teams. Nothing in the searchable record casts him as an NPE/PAE-focused plaintiffs' lawyer.

Firm context. He has been with Alston & Bird throughout his patent career as reflected in public sources, in the firm's Intellectual Property – Patents Group, based in the Silicon Valley office (Palo Alto/East Palo Alto, CA). Firm and trade-press notices list him among Alston & Bird's new partner class reported in January 2023, moving up from senior associate. Earlier profiles from his associate years describe the same prosecution-focused practice.

PTAB / IPR experience. This is a genuine part of his practice. He appears as back-up counsel in PTAB proceedings — for example, in the Alston & Bird team representing patent owner LBT IP II LLC in Uber Technologies, Inc. v. LBT IP II LLC, IPR2022-00926 and IPR2022-00927, where he was designated back-up counsel and remained on the case after a 2024 substitution motion. He was also a contributor to the firm's USPTO Post-Grant Trials Handbook (2nd ed. 2018; 3rd ed. 2023) authored by Alston & Bird's Post-Grant Proceedings team, and his official register number (69,023) appears on PTAB mandatory notices.

Notable matter and credentials. The one tracked case, Universal Electronics v. Roku, sits inside UEI's long-running, multi-forum campaign against Roku over remote-control and streaming-device technology (parallel C.D. Cal. actions and ITC Section 337 investigations 337-TA-1200 and 337-TA-1263, plus Federal Circuit appeals). Firm-level results in that campaign include an ITC exclusion order against Roku on a UEI patent, later affirmed on appeal; a Commission finding of no infringement, no domestic industry, and invalidity as to Roku's patents in the companion investigation; and a June 2025 Federal Circuit ruling invalidating several claims of Roku's universal-remote-programming patent while remanding validity of one surviving claim. Those results were led by other Alston & Bird attorneys; O'Connor's role is recorded as back-up counsel, so the outcomes should not be attributed to him individually. He was named a Managing Intellectual Property "IP Rising Star" four consecutive years through 2024. Admitted in California, Georgia, and before the USPTO; J.D., cum laude, University of Georgia School of Law (2013, articles editor, Georgia Law Review); B.S.M.E., cum laude, Virginia Tech (2010).

Caveat on identification. "Dan O'Connor" is a common name, and USPTO register number 69,023 is indexed on some third-party aggregators under the fuller name "Daniel J. O'Connor." The register number, email address, and Alston & Bird affiliation match across the firm website and PTAB filings, so the linkage is strong, but I could not independently confirm his full legal name from a primary source. Aggregated prosecution-filing counts sometimes attributed to that register number skew toward large corporate filers (Honeywell, Optum/UnitedHealth, Groupon, Energizer, Regeneron), but such totals typically reflect a shared firm customer number and should not be read as his individual client list.