Michael A. Erbele

I'll research this attorney's background before drafting.

Let me look at the specific tracked cases and PTAB activity.

Let me verify which side Merchant & Gould represents in the Champion/Generac matters and confirm a few other details.

Michael A. Erbele — Merchant & Gould (Minneapolis)

Practice focus. Erbele is an IP litigation and appellate lawyer whose practice centers on patent infringement, along with trademark/trade dress, unfair competition, and trade secret claims, in federal courts and agencies nationwide and in Minnesota state court. His firm bio notes a technical background in chemistry and lists chemical technologies, consumer products, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, software, and financial services as representative fields. The patent matters in the tracked docket skew mechanical/consumer-product rather than standard-essential or life-sciences: dual-fuel portable generators (Champion Power Equipment v. Generac Power Systems), amphibious liquid-manure pumping vehicles (Bazooka-Farmstar v. Nuhn Industries and the related Nuhn v. Bazooka Farmstar district court litigation), and a design patent on palm-leaf dinnerware (Verterra, Ltd. v. Leafware LLC, E.D. Cal.). There is no Wi-Fi/SEP or pharmaceutical patent docket visible in the tracked appearances.

Side of the "v." His tracked appearances are mixed but tilt defense: three defendant-side entries versus two plaintiff-side (one of which is an IPR petitioner role arising out of a case in which his client, Bazooka Farmstar, was the district court defendant). The pattern is that of counsel defending operating companies accused of infringement and, where appropriate, mounting parallel PTAB challenges on their behalf, rather than a plaintiff/NPE practice. The Verterra matter is the clearest plaintiff-side engagement — Merchant & Gould represented the patent owner and its principal in asserting a design patent.

Firm context. All five tracked appearances are at Merchant & Gould, where he has spent his career; the firm announced his promotion to partner in the Minneapolis office effective January 1, 2022. No prior firm or in-house role appears in the public record I reviewed. (Note: one TTAB deposition transcript in the firm's "M&G" trademark dispute includes an "Erbele" examining a witness; the witness in that transcript was a different, longer-tenured Merchant & Gould attorney, not Michael Erbele.)

Notable matters and outcomes. In the Bazooka-Farmstar/Nuhn dispute, he was counsel for petitioner Bazooka-Farmstar in a family of IPRs (IPR2023-01161 on the '425 patent, IPR2024-00098 on the '708 patent, IPR2024-00004 on the '835 patent) tied to parallel district court suits in S.D. Iowa; the IPR2024-00098 final written decision found claims 1–38 of the '708 patent unpatentable. In Champion Power Equipment v. Generac Power Systems (E.D. Wis. No. 24-cv-1281), the tracked docket lists him on the defense side, with one entry as lead counsel; the case involves eleven asserted patents across two dual-fuel generator families and has generated a coordinated, multi-front IPR campaign, and the court denied the defense motion to dismiss in January 2025. I could not verify from public sources a final judgment, verdict, or settlement in that case, nor any Federal Circuit appeal argued or decided by him.

PTAB/IPR experience. Yes — he appears in inter partes review proceedings, including admission pro hac vice on behalf of petitioners, and the Bazooka/Nuhn IPRs proceeded through institution, depositions, motions to amend, and final written decisions. He also has TTAB exposure from the firm's own trademark dispute.

Bar/education. Admitted in Minnesota (2012); J.D., Notre Dame Law School (2012); former judicial extern to Judge Kermit E. Bye, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, and a former adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota Law School teaching IP appellate advocacy (per his Merchant & Gould bio and Super Lawyers profile).