Salt Lake City · Utah
Wasatch Front device teams work in some of the most densely patented corners of medicine, from catheters to implanted neural interfaces. Robert Knechtel, a registered patent attorney who is also a physician and engineer, helps founders and in-house teams build claims that hold up in that environment.
Much of Utah's device manufacturing is concentrated in vascular access, catheter and cardiovascular products. BD has operated in Sandy since 1956, where it produces IV catheters, blood collection devices and other vascular products, and its Bard Access Systems unit in Salt Lake City develops ports, PICC lines, guidewires and ultrasound systems used to place them. Merit Medical, founded in 1987 and headquartered in South Jordan, makes devices for interventional, diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, and Edwards Lifesciences has operated a manufacturing and development facility in Draper since 2010.
The valley also has a long history in neural interfaces. University of Utah scientists developed the Utah Electrode Array in the late 1980s, and Blackrock Neurotech, co-founded in Salt Lake City in 2008, has built its brain-computer interface programs on that array. On campus, the PIVOT Center handles invention management, patent prosecution, licensing and startup formation for the University of Utah. In April 2026, University of Utah Health dedicated the James LeVoy Sorenson Center for Medical Innovation, which includes prototyping and clean room space, a surgical training lab used for device evaluation, and incubator space for medtech startups.
BioUtah, a nonprofit trade association launched in 2012, serves the state's medical device, biopharmaceutical and healthcare companies through networking, advocacy and education programs, and its member directory maintains a dedicated medical device category.
For patent strategy, this concentration cuts two ways. Access-device and catheter art is crowded, so an improvement to a hub, valve, lumen or insertion workflow usually needs claims anchored in specific structural and procedural differences rather than broad functional language. And because engineers move regularly among large manufacturers, university labs and startups in a compact metro area, the paperwork behind an invention matters as much as the drafting: who conceived it, when, on whose equipment, and under what agreement. Utah has its own statute on employee inventions, which makes that question worth answering before a founder leaves an established company to build something adjacent.
Patent Strategy Considerations
Before claims are written, the search should reach beyond issued patents. FDA's releasable 510(k) database is public, and many entries include summaries describing a cleared device and its predicate. Reading those alongside the patent literature shows where a new catheter, port or securement feature is genuinely different, and lets the claims be built around those differences instead of features competitors have already disclosed.
Utah law permits employers to require assignment of employment inventions, a term that reaches inventions related to the employer's business or developed with its resources, but limits enforcement against inventions created entirely on an employee's own time that are not employment inventions. Founders spinning out of an established Utah manufacturer should review their prior agreements and the timeline of their work before filing, since ownership disputes are far easier to prevent than to litigate.
Startups built on university technology typically license patent rights through the PIVOT Center. It is worth confirming exactly which patents and fields of use are licensed, who controls ongoing prosecution, and whether federal research funding attaches Bayh-Dole reporting obligations. Improvements developed after the license is signed may warrant separate company-owned filings.
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 Salt Lake City-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 work. Patent prosecution before the USPTO is governed by federal law, and a registered patent attorney may represent applicants from anywhere in the United States. Questions that turn on Utah law, such as enforceability of an employment agreement or a state-court contract dispute, may call for counsel licensed in Utah, and we can coordinate with local counsel when that arises.
Possibly, but the facts matter. Utah's Employment Inventions Act allows an employer to claim inventions that relate to its business or were developed with its resources, while protecting inventions made entirely on the employee's own time that fall outside that definition. The prior employment agreement, the dates of conception and the resources used should be reviewed before an application is filed, so that inventorship and ownership are stated correctly from the outset.
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