As a "seasoned trial lawyer," Steve Maule currently focuses on patent litigation but practices in all areas of intellectual property law, including patent litigation, inter partes and ex parte reexamination proceedings, patent prosecution, and licensing. He has worked on litigation matters in district courts and at the International Trade Commission, and on matters involving electrical power technology, web development and internet technologies, communication systems and technologies, 802.11 wireless technologies, video display technologies, video streaming, virtual machine technologies, and inventor disputes, as well as on patent disputes regarding semiconductor manufacturing technology and semiconductor circuitry design. Steve also has experience preparing and prosecuting patent applications involving wireless security systems, augmented and virtual reality systems, machine learning systems, and other electrical, computer, and software technologies, as well as oil and gas and mechanical technologies including subsurface sensing and control technologies. In addition, Steve is involved in Baker Botts' Emerging Company and Venture Capital (ECVC) practice. While completing his MBA and JD at the University of Houston Law Center and the Bauer College of Business (and supporting his wife's small business), Steve became interested in how intellectual property benefits startups and other small businesses.
Each spring semester, Steve teaches an upper-level course in the Intellectual Property and Information Law at his alma mater, University of Houston Law Center. In the Procedure of Patent Litigation class, Steve and his co-professors teach 2L and 3L students by stepping through a hypothetical patent case from pleadings to post-trial and offer real-world, hands-on experiences with issues that patent litigators face in preparing for trial.
Prior to attending law school, Steve worked as a software engineer for The Boeing Company and L-3 Communications, where he developed software for aircraft simulation and aircraft communication, including both backend libraries and frontend graphical user interfaces. He also worked as a hardware engineer for IBM in blade server development.
Steve earned his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Baylor University in Waco, Texas. During his graduate studies, Steve studied machine learning algorithms. During his graduate and undergraduate studies, he also interned with Dell in its computer hardware evaluation, home media, and television departments.
