Products Engineering Expert Witnesses: 7

David Smith is an experienced mechanical engineer (MS, PE) with seven issued patents. Award-winning inventor. Vice President of Alpine Engineering and Design, a mechanical engineering consulting company with clients around the United States ranging from individual inventors to Fortune 500 companies. Worked on the development of multiple successful products including among other things: aerial lifts, garbage trucks, thrill rides, ziplines, trailers, oil and gas equipment, exercise equipment, manufacturing equipment, and multiple consumer products. 

Graduated Cum Laude with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. Completed a master's of science degree in mechanical engineering and an MBA with an emphasis in product development. Licensed professional engineer (PE) and certified safety professional in comprehensive practice (CSP). Certified trainer for boom lifts, scissor lifts, rough terrain, and counterbalanced forklifts. Over 10 years of experience in product development, patents, equipment safety, and risk assessments. 

Experienced expert witness having drafted over 200 reports/declarations in patent cases and catastrophic injury and death cases. Designed and built multiple custom testing devices to obtain data and evaluate opinions. Created multiple demonstratives to explain the mechanics and circumstances of accident sequences and patented devices. Testified in deposition 11 times and in trial once.

Dr. Rolf Biernath, PhD, Chemical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, and BChE, Georgia Institute of Technology) has over 35 years of experience in the Chemical Industry with a concentration on Polymer Science and Engineering and Material Science Fracture Mechanics. He worked in Materials and Processes at 3M for 31 years in senior technical roles developing materials, processes, and systems. His 58 US patents span a broad range of scientific and engineering disciplines.

Litigation Support - Dr. Biernath is a Patent & Civil Liability Expert Witness having worked with in-house and outside attorneys in prior art searches. He's drafted claims and strategized claims in a variety of fields. He has written Expert Reports for Civil Liability, including material failure analysis, computer simulation, and manufacturing assessment. He is known for his ability to explain complex technical problems simply.

Areas of Expertise:

Background Experience - Dr. Biernath has 58 Issued US Patents on new products and processes, including:

• Industrial Adhesives and Tapes – materials selection, development, automation, and tape application processes
• Electronic Materials – epoxy thermoset adhesives & application process, high speed electronic connectors
• Electronic Displays and optical display films, outdoor digital displays
• Microreplication and textured adhesives and processes, microfluidics, e-Paper
• Signage – retroreflective signage, license plate recognition, ADAS, and Human Invisible, Machine-Readable Coding System
• IoT and IIoT / Automatic and predictive selection and replacement

Dr. Biernath has expertise in stresses in planar systems due to a range of causes including, thermal expansion mismatch, humidity and solvent uptake or loss, and cure shrinkage. He understands assembly processes for tapes and adhesives including interpreting Technical Data Sheets, Application Data Sheets, developing test methods, and selecting materials.

View Biernath Consulting, Inc.'s Business Consultant Profile.

James Parker has over 35 years of relevant industry experience specializing in Electronic Security Systems & Sensors, Electronics R&D, and New Product Development. He has in-depth knowledge of electronic product design in both Wired and Wireless Technologies and outstanding knowledge of Environmental and False Alarm Immunity. Products, such as alarm systems, that Mr. Parker led the design of, have an installed base in the millions. 

Litigation Support - Mr. Parker provides Patent Litigation support to counsel representing both Plaintiff and Defense and is experienced with civil liability, criminal and patent litigation, including Inter Partes Reviews (IPRs). He has the ability to explain complex technical material in a straight forward manner. Mr. Parker's past clients include Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, Fish & Richardson PC, Alarm.com, 2GIG Technologies, and Nest Labs. His services are available nationally and internationally. 

Areas of Expertise:

Background - Mr. Parker is the Past Vice President of Engineering for Digital Security Controls Ltd. (DSC), a leading global manufacturer of electronic security systems and components with sales exceeding $400 million annually. He is currently the President at EE-Systems Group Inc. Canada (R&D) where he is responsible for overseeing new product and business development. A prolific inventor, Mr. Parker has been granted over 25 unique patents with approximately 100 patent documents published worldwide. 

View James Parker's Consulting Profile.

Randal Hill, PhD, Thought leader in chemistry, materials science and intellectual property.  Award winning PhD scientist with 30+ years in applied chemistry.  Visiting Scientist at MIT for 5 years to foster silicone-based nanotechnology projects.  Holder of 69 issued patents.  Author of Silicone Surfactants book and 60 articles.  Served as Patent Science Advisor to grow patent portfolio by 1500%.  Deveoped display for Amazon Kindle.  Readily adapts expertise to new problems.  Served as adunct faculty at Stanford and University of Minnesota.  Organized two international symposia.  Invited speaker at Gordon Conference and four international colloid meetings.  Associate Editor of Journal of Surfactants and Detergents.  Involved member of American Chemical Society, Society of Petroleum Engineers, American Physical Society, and American Oil Chemists Society. Awards  include 3 Dow Corning Technical Achievement Awards, as well as the AOCS Samuel Rosen Award for Surfactant Chemistry.  

Experience includes fire-fighting foams, well fluids, adhesives, silicone defoamers, formulation of household and personal care products, applications of silicone surfactants, silicone-based nanotechnology for soldier protection, development of pigments for electronic displays.

Background Experience - Dr. Hill began his career at a major detergent company followed by developing sugar-based surfactants. He went on to spend 20 years with Dow Corning developing personal care applications for silicones, leading the pigment science group at E Ink developing the next generation of color electrophoretic ink displays, and leading the Formulation Development group at Flotek to expand the product line by 300% and grow the patent portfolio by 1400%.

Dr. Hill is now known for his work on silicone surfactants, especially for his work on super wetting. During his time as MIT Visiting Scientist with Dow, he also initiated work on silicone-based superhydrophobic surfaces, which led to a publication that has since been cited nearly 1,500 times.

Dr. Hill is the author of 60 publications, including an authoritative book entitled, Silicone Surfactants. He is a highly awarded inventor with accolades that include 3 Dow Corning Technical Achievement Awards, as well as the 2017 AOCS Samuel Rosen Award for Surfactant Chemistry.

• BACKGROUND:

40+ years' experience including in product design, product development, and manufacturing in consumer, medical, and industrial product markets. Product innovation part-time academic since 2009, public speaker since 1985. Certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) since 2008 by the Product Development and Management Association. Member of: Society of Plastics Engineers, Society of Manufacturing Engineers, American Society for Quality. Expert witness services to Product Liability, Intellectual Property, and Commercial Dispute litigators.

• PRODUCT LIABILTY EXPERTISE:

Retained by both plaintiff and defense counsel. Specialize in personal injury cases involving product defects, manufacturing defects, product safety, engineering design, mechanical failures, material failures, product quality assurance, and foreseeable misuse. 

• CASE EXAMPLES:

• Retained in cases involving 3M, Honeywell, Clorox, Ace Hardware, and others. 
• 3M Combat Arms earplug case, retained by two plaintiff firms. More at, https://bit.ly/Forbes-on-3M Daubert ruling at, https://bit.ly/EPR-3MEP-Daubert (Page 98). Two depositions. (Plaintiff) 
• Furniture review of the state of competitive product safety, mechanisms, warnings. Counsel represented major insurance company. Settled after report. (Defense) 
• N95 mask commercial dispute, settled after report. (Plaintiff) 
• Consumer electronics patent infringement, settled after report. (Defense) 

• MORE INFO AT:

Expert witness services offered can be seen at, https://bit.ly/PDEWS Preferred contact: eric@pinnaclepi.com

Content above is a selection of work, current case history available upon request. Expert witness testimonials at, https://bit.ly/EPR-EWT

• EXPERT WITNESS PODCAST INTERVIEW

Gary D. Fletcher, PhD,  is the Founder and Principal Consultant at RnDDx Solutions LLC, a consulting firm founded in 2015, focused on Industrial Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering and Research and Product Development.  In his 30 years of experience, he has been co-inventor on 23 patents for devices and methods in blood collection and processing.

Litigation Support - Dr. Fletcher has subject matter expertise in Medical Device Mechanical Engineering and subject matter expertise in Medical Devices for blood and specimen collection and sample processing for in vitro diagnostics, point of care diagnostics, and therapeutics, including glucose monitoring. He serves as an expert witness in patent infringement cases involving medical device and diagnostic biomedical engineering, blood collection, separation, fluidic preparation, glucose monitoring, and cell therapy preparation devices.

Dr. Fletcher offers patent litigation services to law firms and lawyers supporting medical device and diagnostic industry clients, who need physical science and mechanical and biomedical engineering expertise for District Court, PTAB, and ITC patent cases. As an industry consultant, his ideal clients are R&D, product development, and innovation leaders in startup, emerging, and established medical device and diagnostic companies, who face product development and competitive challenges.

Areas of Expertise:

Dr. Fletcher is an entrepreneurial executive with expanding R&D roles in business, technology, and new product development leadership and execution, building and guiding teams in both Fortune 500 and startup companies. With a PhD in physics from Yale, he has a proven record of leadership in creating innovative new businesses and products in healthcare, medical devices, diagnostics, life, materials, and optical sciences.

Mr. Joshua Weiner, NABCEP, is a Solar Expert Witness with over 20 years of experience in policy, technology, sales contracts, project finance, permits and entitlements, project development and construction, engineering and project management, data acquisition and analysis that commonly apply to renewable energy and energy storage projects in residential, commercial, industrial, utility-scale markets, and energy storage.

Before founding SepiSolar, Mr. Weiner developed grid-connected energy storage and micro-grid projects with NRG's Station A R&D team (2015-2019) and NEXTracker's integrated energy storage program, where he played many roles in the development of solar and energy storage products and services, including design, engineering, business, policy, project, product, hardware, and software development. 

Litigation Support: Mr. Weiner brings his experience teaching courses through the UC Berkeley extension program, SepiAcademy to aid attorneys, plaintiffs, defendants, and judges in understanding the complex nuances of construction, technology, and policy of the solar and energy storage industries.

Areas of Expertise

View Joshua Weiner's Business Consultant Profile.