Counsel
Robert Bean is a patent attorney with a background in Computer Science who specializes in patent preparation and prosecution. A veteran in the space, he has drafted over a hundred original patent applications and filed over five hundred office action responses, predominantly in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, autonomous vehicles/drones, smart sensors, streaming, 3D printing, computer hardware, digital twins, machine vision, natural language processing, home automation, cybersecurity, mobile applications, and virtual reality.
Prior to joining Harrity & Harrity, Robert worked as in-house counsel for almost a decade at IBM, where he gained substantial preparation and prosecution experience, particularly regarding subject matter eligibility issues under 35 U.S.C. § 101, as well as considerable patent development experience as the case manager for the causal AI, reinforcement learning, human interaction, AI prediction, computer vision, and robotics tech codes. Before IBM, Robert worked at Baker & Hostetler LLP as part of a law school co-op program, and briefly served as a Patent Examiner at the USPTO under the Patent Experiential Externship Program.
In his free time, Robert prefers to balance out the abstract nature of patent work with tactile hobbies such as baking, archery, backpacking, and woodworking.