Robert E. Sokohl

Robert E. Sokohl — Patent Litigation Practice Summary

Specialty / focus areas. Sokohl is an electronics and software patent lawyer with a background in computer engineering. His practice spans patent prosecution, portfolio management, IP transactions, and litigation in district courts, the ITC, and the Federal Circuit (Sterne Kessler firm bio). The tracked matter — Redstone Logics LLC v. Qualcomm Inc. et al., No. 7:24-cv-00231 (W.D. Tex.) — involves multi-core SoC processor power-management technology, and his USPTO prosecution history skews heavily toward clients such as Apple, TSMC, Roku, ASML, and SAP, confirming a semiconductor/electronics and software focus. There is no evidence in the sources of a pharma or life-sciences practice.

Side preference. He works primarily for accused operating companies. The single tracked appearance is defendant-side (defending Qualcomm against NPE Redstone Logics), and his firm bio states his litigation experience is "particularly in defending clients in intellectual property disputes," including Grape Technology v. Jingle Networks, decisioning.com v. TD Ameritrade, and Supracor v. Reebok. No NPE/PAE prosecution work appears in the sources. Note: the tracked case list records him as "of counsel," while current firm materials identify him as a director in Sterne Kessler's Electronics Practice Group.

Firm context and notable matters. Sokohl has spent his career at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox (Washington, D.C.), where he is a director and former nine-year member of the Executive Committee; no prior firm is identified in available sources. Notable matters include co-counseling in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International (2014), the Supreme Court's abstract-idea decision (CLS Bank prevailed unanimously), co-authoring IBM's appellant's brief in In re Beauregard (Fed. Cir. 1995), which led to USPTO software patentability guidelines, and a lead defense role in Grape Technology v. Jingle Networks (successful trial defense). In the tracked case, Qualcomm faced NPE infringement allegations over U.S. Patent No. 8,549,339 and joined NXP in a related petition, IPR2025-00485.

PTAB/IPR experience. Substantial. He has extensive experience leading ex parte and inter partes reexaminations and inter partes reviews, and appears in PTAB records as counsel for petitioners including Marvell (IPR2015) and Apple (IPR2018), plus the NXP/Qualcomm IPR against Redstone Logics.

Bar / education. Admitted D.C. (1991) and registered with the USPTO (Reg. No. 36,013); J.D., American University Washington College of Law; B.S. in computer engineering, Syracuse University.