Neil Jones is a partner of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP and a team leader in the firm’s Intellectual Property Law and Litigation Group. Mr. Jones practices patent, trademark and copyright law and related litigation to enforce or protect such rights. With extensive counseling experience in intellectual property matters, Mr. Jones also renders patent infringement and validity opinions, assists clients with the development and valuation of their intellectual property, and negotiates intellectual property licenses domestically and internationally. 

After law school, Mr. Jones honed his patent and litigation skills at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the court which has exclusive nationwide jurisdiction over patent appeals, while he served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable Jean Galloway Bissell. Since that time, he has been engaged in all aspects of intellectual property litigation, including being the lead trial attorney for both plaintiffs and defendants in patent, trademark, and copyright infringement lawsuits before the federal district and appellate courts.  Such litigations have involved technologies and products ranging from chemical dyes to locomotive parking brakes to clothing designs. A registered patent attorney, he has obtained U.S. and foreign patents for chemical and biotech clients in many industries, including medical treatments, nutritional products, paper and papermaking chemicals, pharmaceuticals, polymer science, and transgenic plants. Additionally, Mr. Jones successfully advises and assists clients in establishing networks of worldwide patent and trademark portfolios to protect their intellectual property and has also successfully served as a mediator in IP disputes. 

A member of the State Bars of South Carolina (chair, Intellectual Property Law Committee, 1997-98) and Texas (inactive), Mr. Jones is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. District Courts for South Carolina and the Northern District of Texas. He has been admitted pro hac vice in over twenty jurisdictions.  

Mr. Jones is a member of the American Bar Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the Carolina Patent, Trademark and Copyright Law Association, the Defense Research Institute, the Federal Circuit Bar Association, the Greenville County Bar Association, and the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association. Mr. Jones is involved in the Greenville community, actively serving in his church, as a former trustee of Erskine College, as a member of various public school committees, as a member of Leadership Greenville, and as a two-term President of Greenville Little League and lifetime Board Member. Mr. Jones is listed in The Best Lawyers in America for his practice in intellectual property litigation. Best Lawyers also has named him the 2012 Greenville Litigation – Intellectual Property Lawyer of the Year.

In 1988, Mr. Jones earned a Juris Doctor, with honors, from The George Washington University Law School where he was named to The Order of the Coif and served as a member of the George Washington Law Review and the Moot Court Board.  He was also the Giles Rich Intellectual Property Law Moot Court champion. Mr. Jones earned a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry, summa cum laude, from Erskine College in 1985. 

Representative Experience 

• Successfully convinced Federal Circuit to invalidate plaintiff’s patent relating to chemical dyeing technology pre-KSR; opinion was cited by Supreme Court in KSR and is well-known case in patent circles; utilized expertise of firm’s three former Federal Circuit clerks.
• Currently manage patent portfolio for client related to seed treatment technology, including transgenic plants, so that client’s intellectual property is fully and broadly protected.
• Successfully prosecuted and managed patents for international pharmaceutical client before client was purchased and work was consolidated with purchasing company’s law firms.
• Successfully managed entire patent portfolio, including numerous opinions and multiple pre-litigation studies, on behalf of world’s leading infant formula and children’s nutritionals manufacturer.
• Obtained favorable settlement for clients in many patent infringement lawsuits, for both plaintiffs and defendants, without the expense of trial; most recently, achieved settlement for a defendant by having plaintiff completely dismiss, before discovery, its patent infringement claims for defendant’s core business method/software technology.
• Successfully defended, and currently defending, multiple clients against patent infringement allegations by non-practicing entities or others in various jurisdictions, including several cases in the Eastern District of Texas; most recently obtaining a favorable defense settlement on behalf of client in the E.D. Tex.
• Drafted and negotiated many intellectual property licenses on behalf of international clients. 
• Successfully built several unique “patent matrixes” for multiple clients enhancing the connection between clients’ IP and their business objectives so as to maximize value returned from their IP investment.