Joseph F. Butcher

I'll research this attorney's background before writing the summary.

Joseph F. Butcher — Zimmer Kunz, PLLC (Pittsburgh, PA)

Focus areas. Butcher is not an IP specialist by practice description. His firm biography describes a general civil trial and appellate practice — commercial and tort litigation, employment, civil rights, products liability and toxic torts, insurance and administrative law, and professional-malpractice defense — with no patent or IP practice area listed. His only tracked patent matter, Intellectual Ventures I & II LLC v. PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. et al. (W.D. Pa., Nos. 2:13-cv-00740 and 2:14-cv-00832, Judge Arthur J. Schwab), involved financial-services/software subject matter: online banking and electronic transaction security, digital-property access control, menu-interface software, and errant-file identification patents ('666, '574, '002, '298, '409). The technology overlap with his patent docket is therefore banking/financial software and computer security, not Wi-Fi, pharma, or mechanical arts.

Side preference. The tracked data show a single appearance, on the plaintiff side, as local counsel (1 plaintiff / 0 defendant). In the IV/PNC matter, Zimmer Kunz attorneys (Butcher, Daniel E. Krauth, and Samantha A. Quinn) entered appearances on behalf of the Intellectual Ventures I and II entities — the plaintiffs/NPE — while out-of-state counsel (including Ian Feinberg, Elizabeth Day, David Alberti, and Sal Lim) handled the substantive advocacy. His larger book of business, per his firm profile and DRI/insurance-defense affiliations, is defense-side civil litigation; the patent appearance is an outlier, consistent with a Pittsburgh local-counsel role rather than a plaintiff-side patent practice.

Firm context and notable matters. Butcher is a Member at Zimmer Kunz, PLLC, a Pittsburgh/Greensburg litigation firm; no prior firm history relevant to patent litigation was found in public sources. The IV/PNC case is his most prominent tracked matter. Related PTAB activity exists — PNC filed covered-business-method reviews against IV's patents (CBM2014-00029, -00031, -00032) — but those were filed by PNC, and no record was found of Butcher appearing before the Board; the Board's written decision in CBM2014-00030 (the parallel Bank of America proceeding on the '382 patent) found the claims patent-ineligible under § 101. Reported outcomes specifically attributable to Butcher in the patent case were not located; the district court cases were terminated in December 2013 and August 2014 respectively on the docket.

Bar / education. Admitted in Pennsylvania (2000), also admitted in West Virginia and Ohio; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and numerous district courts in those states. J.D., Case Western Reserve University School of Law (cum laude, 2000); B.A., Westminster College (Pa.), 1997.

Caveats: his firm profile does not state registration as a patent attorney, and there is no source indicating a PTAB practice. This summary relies on his firm biography, the Pennsylvania disciplinary board and Martindale records, and federal docket entries; some search results for this common name concern unrelated attorneys and were excluded.