Todd A. Van Thomme
Todd Van Thomme is a shareholder in the firm's Intellectual Property Department. His practice is diverse, but primarily focuses on assisting clients with their mechanical, chemical, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and food science related intellectual property needs. Todd also counsels clients on how to avoid intellectual property disputes and resolve them in a cost effective manner. He has extensive experience drafting and prosecuting patent applications across a wide array of technologies, particularly food science, mechanical, and chemical related patent applications, as well as extensive experience drafting patentability, non-infringement, and invalidity opinions across a variety of technologies, in particular opinions related to mechanical, food science, pharmaceutical, and nutraceutical patents and patent applications.
Todd served as a secondment in-house counsel for Whirlpool Corporation handling various legal transactional and prosecution dockets for various groups including its refrigeration group. This experience allows Todd to apply an understanding of an in-house counsel to how he serves and provides his clients with legal services and advice.
Todd served as President for the Association of Intellectual Property Firms (AIPF) from 2010 to 2012. He also served as the AIPF Annual Meeting Committee Chair in 2015. Due to his involvement with the AIPF and other international organizations, Todd has personal connections with thought leaders in intellectual property from around the world and uses those connections to aid clients in protecting their intellectual property around the world.
Todd is currently serving as a Member at Large for the Iowa Section of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). In 2017, Todd participated in the Section Leadership forum at the National IFT meeting where he met and shared ideas with other IFT section leaders from across the country. He has also served previously as the Treasurer of the Great Lakes Section of the IFT and was recognized as the section's outstanding volunteer in 2015. He has spoken on intellectual property issues to the Great Lakes Section and Florida Section of the IFT. Todd has been a member of the IFT since 2008.
Todd is the inventor of the Giftzapz app on the Apple App store and owner of Giftzapz LLC (www.giftzapz.com). His own experience as a startup company helps him understand more than just the legal challenges facing startup businesses and clients generally, but also the day to day issues one encounters when running a business.
Todd and other members of the Intellectual Property Team at Nyemaster also keep office hours in Nyemaster’s Ames office.
PRACTICE AREAS
Patents Trademarks and Legal Brand Management Licensing Copyrights Intellectual Property Opinions
EDUCATION
Iowa State University (B.S., Chemistry, 1994)
Drake University (J.D., with honors, 1997)
BAR ADMISSIONS
Iowa, 1997
Michigan, 1998
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 1999
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Price Heneveld LLP, 1997-2015
Whirlpool Corporation, Secondment Intellectual Property Counsel, 2014-2015
Des Moines, Iowa 50309-3899
