Kent is a founding partner of Shumaker & Sieffert, and a registered U.S. patent attorney. Prior to founding the firm, Kent was a patent attorney at the firms of Fish & Richardson and Schwegman, Lundberg and Woessner. Kent also worked as a senior design engineer at 3M, where he was project leader and principal software architect for several medical imaging products. Over the course of his software engineering career, Kent was a lead inventor on several patents. Kent’s practice includes all facets of patent preparation and prosecution, strategic counseling on patent portfolio management and development, freedom-to-operate counseling, non-infringement and invalidity counseling, and pre-suit investigations. Kent works with a broad spectrum of companies nationally from established fortune 100 companies to startups.

His graduate research at the University of Michigan included the design of high-performance RISC-based microprocessors and distributed real-time operating systems. Kent is particularly experienced in the software and computing fields, working as an engineer and patent attorney for many years in computer architecture and digital design including multi-core processors and ASIC design, network infrastructure and protocols including routing and switching, computer graphics, software systems and architecture including object-oriented design, databases, operating systems, data center virtualization infrastructure and automation, software-defined networking, UIs and mobile device architecture.

Kent has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School since 2001, where he teaches courses on Patent Practice and Advanced Patent Practice.

Alternate Job Roles
U.S. Patent Attorney and Founding partner, Shumaker & Sieffert. P.A.

Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School

Programs
M.S. in Management of Technology

Consulting
Kent’s representative clients include Juniper Networks, Equinix, 3M, IBM, Stanford Research Institute (SRI, Inc.) and the University of Minnesota.

Education

Juris Doctor Degree
University of Minnesota Law School

Master of Science in Computer Engineering
University of Michigan

Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering
Michigan Technological Unversity

Currently Teaching Courses

• Intellectual Property Management: Valuation and Strategy (MOT 8940)

Honors and Awards

In the 2016 and 2017 editions of the IAM Patent 1000, The World’s Leading Patent Professionals, Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine named Kent in its short list of recommended patent lawyers for patent prosecution in Minnesota.