John-Paul is a patent attorney in our Electronics, Computing & Physics group.
Dr John-Paul Rooney is a partner and European and UK patent attorney in our Electronics, Computing & Physics group with 20+ years of experience. He has particular knowledge of the electronics and software fields including smartphones and their associated UIs, antennas, displays, and communications standards including LTE and 5G, plus other computing devices and signal coding technologies, particularly hierarchical video coding including the MPEG5-LCEVC standard, and instrumentation and measurement devices. John-Paul successfully manages large client relationships and their portfolios providing them with strategic insight into European patent law practice and changes, and also provides full service IP support to innovative multi-nationals and SMEs. John-Paul is a professional representative before the Unified Patent Court in the EU.
John-Paul has an electronics & electrical engineering background to PhD level with industry experience as a technician and design engineer, and has delivered presentations on intellectual property law issues internationally for various organisations, including the UK Intellectual Property Office, UKTI, and the China-Britain Business Council. John-Paul has also written for and contributed to articles in several national and international publications, including The Telegraph and The Guardian.
John-Paul holds a PhD in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the University of Leeds, and joined Withers & Rogers in 2003 in London after a spell in industry designing electrical distribution systems in hazardous areas. He rejoined us in 2011 to develop the Electronics, Computing and Physics group in the North of England after spending 5 years at another firm in Yorkshire. Unusually, John-Paul completed a trade apprenticeship in instrumentation and electrical engineering at AstraZeneca prior to joining the patent profession.
John-Paul has knowledge and experience of working with Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) in the United Kingdom and in compatible territories overseas, such as in Europe, Australia and New Zealand and is familiar with telecommunications technology including coded orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) modulation techniques from his PhD studies. John-Paul works with MPEG standards, such as MPEG-2 video, MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) commonly referred to a H.264, and MPEG-5 HEVC. John-Paul also works with non-MPEG technologies in video coding and broadcast. In addition, John-Paul has successfully prosecuted many difficult graphical user interface (GUI) patents before the European Patent Office and has knowledge of aspects of various audio codecs (such as ALAC, Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD, FLAC, MPEG-4 ALS, MLP, etc.).
In March 2023, he was registered as a representative before the new Unified Patent Court, one of the first European patent attorneys to be entered on the list of UPC representatives.
John-Paul loves cycling in the Peak District, is known to play 5-a-side football on Monday evenings, and more than the odd game of golf during the summer. John-Paul has two daughters and a son and enjoys swimming, camping and having adventures with them.