Neal is a technophile and entrepreneur and has more than 20 years' experience in various aspects of intellectual property. He’s a multi-jurisdictional patent and trade mark attorney with a background in electrical engineering and power electronics.

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Prior to founding Patenteur, he established successful practices at law firms overseas and locally, including at Australia's premier national IP firm.

He also has substantial experience as in-house innovation counsel, including managing the IP portfolio of the world's second largest global mining company, Rio Tinto. During his time at Rio Tinto, the company was awarded the Thomson Reuters 2012 Australian Innovation Award, which is judged on patent quality, success rate, globalisation, and influence.
 

Neal's experience also includes driving the IP direction and providing commercial advice for a number of Australian technology companies, as well as consulting to European and Asian advisory and technology firms.
 

An IP generalist, Neal is particularly skilled in patent law, including patent drafting and prosecution, portfolio analyses and opinions, freedom to operate studies, negotiations and IP agreements, patent portfolio strategy & management, as well as contentious proceedings. Neal has also been published in a number of IP publications.

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Having a personal interest in information and communications technology, Neal has extensive professional experience with patenting ICT inventions, including software, computer architectures, apps, communication networks, business methods, online transactions and electronic circuits, along with a broad scope of general engineering technologies.

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Neal holds degrees in electrical engineering, law and intellectual property.