Cleveland & Northeast Ohio · Ohio
Many Northeast Ohio device companies begin inside a hospital or research lab, which makes licensing terms and inventorship as important as the claims themselves. Robert Knechtel, a patent attorney, physician and engineer, helps founders build patent positions around clinically originated technology.
Northeast Ohio's device activity is closely tied to its academic medical centers. Cleveland Clinic Innovations, founded in 2000, serves as the commercialization arm of Cleveland Clinic, licensing technologies, launching startups and building industry partnerships. It reports 207 invention disclosures and 58 new license agreements for 2025. For a founder, that pipeline means a meaningful share of promising device concepts in the region begin as hospital-owned intellectual property that must be licensed before a company can build on it.
Case Western Reserve University adds engineering depth, particularly in neural technology. Its trustees approved a Department of Biomedical Engineering in 1968, and in 1972 the university became one of the first schools to offer an undergraduate biomedical engineering degree. The department's neural engineering work grew through a rehabilitation engineering center created in 1977, the Cleveland Functional Electrical Stimulation Center launched in 1999, and a Neural Engineering Center started in 2001. Current research spans neuromodulation for conditions such as stroke, epilepsy, pain and spinal cord injury, as well as implanted devices that communicate with the nervous system.
Established manufacturers give the region a broad industrial base. STERIS, founded in Ohio in 1985, maintains its operational headquarters in Mentor and focuses on sterilization, infection prevention and surgical products. Invacare, a maker of mobility and home care equipment, is headquartered in Elyria. Company-building support comes from JumpStart, a Cleveland nonprofit venture development organization created in 2003 that operates accelerators and invests in Northeast Ohio startups, and from BioOhio, the Columbus-based statewide bioscience membership organization founded in 1987, which serves as the state affiliate for AdvaMed and MDMA.
These features shape patent strategy in practical ways. A startup built on a hospital or university license needs to understand exactly what it received and how its own improvements will be owned. Neuromodulation and implantable electronics combine hardware, stimulation parameters and software, which calls for claims that reach each layer. And process-heavy fields such as sterilization and reprocessing require deliberate choices between patenting a method and keeping it as a trade secret.
Patent Strategy Considerations
An institutional license defines the field of use, territory, sublicensing rights, milestones and control of prosecution. If federal grants supported the underlying research, Bayh-Dole obligations and government rights also apply. Improvements developed after the license should be addressed expressly so ownership of your company's own innovations is not left ambiguous.
A stimulation system may be distinguished by electrode design, signal parameters, closed-loop control logic or patient-specific programming. Claims that cover the physical system alongside the technical control methods, drafted with software eligibility rules in mind, reduce the chance that a competitor avoids infringement by changing a single element.
Manufacturing, sterilization and reprocessing methods are often difficult to detect in a competitor's product, which can make patent enforcement hard. Federal law provides a civil action for trade secret misappropriation, but that protection depends on reasonable secrecy measures. The right choice depends on detectability, reverse-engineering risk and investor expectations.
How Engagements Work
Knechtel Law Group is based in Carefree, Arizona. Patent prosecution and counseling before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is federal practice, and engagements with Cleveland & Northeast Ohio-area companies are handled directly by senior counsel by video and in person as needed. Matters that turn on state law may call for local counsel.
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Not for patent prosecution. U.S. patent practice before the USPTO is federal, and registered patent attorneys and agents may represent applicants regardless of location. Ohio state-law issues, such as some employment agreements or state-court contract disputes, may call for counsel licensed in Ohio, and we can coordinate with that counsel.
Generally yes, but the license terms control how those improvements are treated. Some agreements include grant-back or improvement clauses, and joint development with institutional researchers can create shared inventorship. Reviewing the agreement before development begins avoids surprises.
It depends on whether infringement could be detected and proven, how easily the process could be independently developed, and whether a patent adds value in financing. For processes that remain invisible in the finished product, trade secret protection is sometimes the better fit.
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