Nicholas Caiafa focuses his intellectual property practice on the preparation and prosecution of mechanical, electrical, and chemical patent applications, including a broad range of technologies involving medical devices, automobile components, agricultural equipment, lithium-ion batteries, power generation equipment, consumer products, flexographic printing and electrical systems.
Nick works with clients ranging from startups to large entities, and leverages his extensive hands-on product development experience to analyze inventions and develop patent strategies tailored to client’s current and future objectives. Nick is experienced in assessing early-stage technology and routinely counsels new inventors and startup companies as they develop and commercialize a product.
In addition to the preparation and prosecution of patent applications, Nick prepares opinions on patentability, validity, noninfringement and freedom-to-operate matters. He provides patent counseling related to patent portfolio management, enforcement of a patent, challenge of a patent, transactions involving a patent, and technology licensing agreements. Nick previously served as the in-house patent counsel for physical sciences and engineering at the University of Connecticut.
Prior to becoming an intellectual property attorney, Nick was a Design Engineer at Parker Hannifin, where he worked in a research and development incubator, funded by the Chief Technology Officer. He was the primary engineer on the development of a piezoelectric cutting device for surgical and non-surgical uses, where he designed, fabricated, and tested functional prototypes to meet customer specifications, and further performed proof-of-concept demonstrations for interested parties and Parker Hannifin executives. In the year prior to attending law school, Nick transitioned to the development of balance of plant designs for fuel cell applications, where he focused primarily on fluid mechanics , including the design and testing of desulfurization filters and blower configurations.