Dan Thornton

Dan works on all aspects of the patent application process in the mechanical, electronics, and engineering sectors. Dan’s experiences go well beyond the transactional though. He is driven by value creation and a continued focus on the commercial purpose of pursuing patent protection.

Unusually for a private practice attorney Dan has undertaken a long-term client secondment. During that time he helped to set up an in-house department and effectively worked as an in-house attorney. He has built extensive experience in developing IP strategies, invention capture and IP protection processes, along with management of large-scale Freedom to Operate (“FTO”) projects from in house and private practice perspectives.

The secondment experience has also given Dan a rare insight into the commercial, legal, and technical challenges faced by a large engineering R & D centre and a unique understanding of the business drivers. This provides him with a depth of real world understanding rarely found in a private practice attorney.

Dan is particularly interested in working with start-ups and SMEs. He is experienced in developing and implementing IP strategies that serve the commercial aspirations of growing companies. Dan is well-versed in IP audits, in particular government-funded IP Audits.

Areas of Expertise - universal

• Freedom to Operate (FTO) – Dan is an authority when it comes to FTO. He has many years of experience in designing, managing and conducting FTO projects at all scales.
  • Planning – search strategy and implementation, analysis type and depth, analysis outputs, and use cases for the analysis
  • Depth of analysis for immediate use and cost control
  • Bibliographic funnelling and assessment of datasets to provide focus and control cost
  • A deep understanding of the business uses of FTO – what helps and what doesn’t
  • Working with engineers to plan and implement design arounds and obtain useful product information
    
    
• Portfolio management and portfolio steering, value assessment, and leverage creation – both designing and implementing the processes
• Patent landscaping and third-party portfolio assessment
• Invention identification and assessment, including working closely with inventors and third parties, for example design consultants and suppliers
• Patent drafting, including assessing patent drafting quality

Dan is passionate about teamwork. Dan says:

“Historically the patent attorney profession has sometimes been a lonesome one. One attorney, one client. We are well beyond that now – I take great pride in Mewburn for that. We bring teamwork to everything we do – formally and informally. Bringing those teams to bear on our clients’ problems and projects means maximum efficiency, while delivering the appropriate output at the appropriate cost point.”.  

Areas of expertise - technology

• Consumer electronic devices and associated products, including control electronics and firmware, hardware, electronics, end-user performance, and wireless connectivity.
• Medical devices
• Automotive technology, including automated driving
• Machine learning, including neural networks
  

Dan has a strong personal interest in space technology. The opportunities for SMEs in the space sector to grow, and to support that growth with focused IP, are substantial. Dan’s breadth of technical experience, including a strong focus on signal processing and programming during his studies, mean he is well placed to deliver in the space sector. 

Recommendations

• "Dan Thornton is a standout attorney who understands fully our business and is able to provide timely and commercial advice." - The Legal 500, 2025.
• "Graeme Moore and Dan Thornton are stand-out lawyers." - The Legal 500, 2024.
• Dan is recognised as a "key lawyer" in the 2023-2025 edition of The Legal 500.
• He has been recognised in IAM Patent 1000 2024.
• “Dan has been working as a secondee at Nerudia for the last 2 years and has been integral to us finding inventions and helping us draft, file and prosecute patent applications. He works tremendously hard and well under very tight deadlines. He is a safe pair of hands and will always endeavour to find a workaround to the most difficult scenarios. He understands how to work in a challenging in-house environment and provides the hands-on approach needed. He is at all times professional, attentive and a pleasure to work with.”  - General Counsel
  

Background

Dan has an MPhys degree (2008) in physics and PhD in astrophysics (2013) both from the University of Manchester. Between degrees he worked as a scientist at a defence technology company. He joined Mewburn Ellis LLP in 2013, qualifying as a European Patent Attorney in 2017 and as a Chartered Patent Attorney in 2021. He has a Postgraduate Certificate in IP from Queen Mary University. He joined the partnership in 2022.

During his PhD Dan used supercomputing facilities to confirm a new class of astrophysical radio source. This result was published in Science magazine, and has since been cited over 900 times.