Experienced counsel. Real technical depth.
BIPA is a firm where the attorneys doing your work have spent careers building expertise in the disciplines that matter — engineering, science, brand strategy, and global IP practice. You will always work directly with a lawyer who understands the technology behind your invention and the business reality behind your IP decisions.
David A. Costa, Ph.D.
Patent Attorney
David's background is unusual even by patent attorney standards: a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology, a master's degree in biomedical engineering, and a law degree, all brought to bear on complex, multidisciplinary patent work. He is comfortable at the boundary between scientific disciplines, which makes him particularly effective for clients whose inventions do not fit into a single technical box. David's prosecution practice spans biotech and medical devices, mechanical and electrical systems, and consumer innovations.
Kathleen S. Ryan
Attorney · Trademark and Brand Counsel
Kathleen's practice is built around one of the most valuable things a business can own: its identity. With more than 25 years of experience in global trademark prosecution and counseling, she helps clients build brand protection strategies that hold up across borders, industries, and market shifts. She manages complex trademark portfolios for businesses of all sizes, coordinates filings across international jurisdictions, and advises on brand enforcement when conflicts arise. Kathleen brings a strategic, commercially grounded perspective to trademark work — always asking not just what the law allows, but what actually protects the brand long-term.
Curtis J. Ollila
Patent Attorney
Curtis has spent more than 25 years at the intersection of engineering and intellectual property law. As a registered patent attorney with a technical background in engineering, he brings rigorous analytical thinking to every patent matter — from initial strategy through prosecution, litigation support, and international portfolio management. His clients range from individual inventors with a single breakthrough idea to multinational corporations managing IP across the US, UK, Germany, China, and Switzerland. Curtis founded BIPA on the conviction that a boutique firm can deliver sophisticated, globally-minded IP counsel without the overhead and institutional inertia of a large firm.
Our Team / Full Attorney Profiles
David A. Costa, Ph.D.
Attorney · Patent Attorney
The science behind the invention. The strategy to protect it.
David Costa brings credentials that are rare even among technically-trained patent attorneys. His doctoral work in biochemistry and molecular biology, combined with graduate training in biomedical engineering and a law degree, positions him to work comfortably across the full range of life sciences and physical sciences patent matters — and in the complex, interdisciplinary spaces between them.
In practice, this means David is particularly effective for clients whose technologies do not fit a single category. Biotech that incorporates mechanical systems. Medical devices with embedded software. Consumer products that require chemistry, electrical engineering, and materials science to describe properly. David does not need the technology explained to him the way a generalist attorney might. He already speaks the language, which means more of the engagement is spent on strategy and less on translation.
His prosecution practice covers US and international patent filings across biotech, medical devices, mechanical and electrical systems, and consumer innovations. He drafts claims with an understanding of how they will be read by examiners, competitors, and courts — building portfolios intended to hold up under scrutiny, not just get granted.
David is also a genuine product of the mountain west innovation culture. When he is not building IP strategy for emerging companies, he is on the slopes or in the shop, teaching his son to solder, machine, and tinker. He understands inventors because he thinks like one.
CREDENTIALS AND BACKGROUND
Ph.D., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. M.S., Biomedical Engineering. J.D., University of Florida. Registered to practice before the USPTO. US and international patent prosecution across life sciences, engineering, and consumer technology disciplines.
Kathleen S. Ryan
Attorney · Trademark and Brand Counsel
Global brand protection, grounded in strategy.
Kathleen Ryan has spent more than 25 years helping businesses turn their names, marks, and brand identities into durable legal assets. Her practice covers the full arc of trademark counsel — from early-stage clearance through prosecution, portfolio management, brand monitoring, and enforcement — and she has done this work for clients operating in some of the most competitive and brand-sensitive markets in the world.
What distinguishes Kathleen's practice is the combination of depth and global reach. She handles not just US trademark prosecution before the USPTO but coordinated international filings through the Madrid Protocol and direct national processes, managing the foreign associate relationships required to keep strategy consistent and quality high wherever a client's brand needs to live.
She advises clients across industry sectors, from startups naming their first product to established companies managing hundreds of marks across dozens of countries. In each case, her approach is the same: understand the business first, build a protection strategy that fits the actual risk profile, and manage it proactively before problems arise.
Kathleen also handles trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings, enforcement correspondence, and licensing matters, bringing the same strategic clarity to adversarial trademark situations that she applies to routine prosecution.
CREDENTIALS AND BACKGROUND
More than 25 years of trademark prosecution and global brand counseling experience. Active practice before the USPTO and in international trademark systems including Madrid Protocol and direct national filings in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.
Curtis J. Ollila
Managing Partner · Registered Patent Attorney
Strategic depth on both sides of the patent.
Curtis Ollila has built his career at the precise boundary where engineering rigor meets legal strategy. As a registered patent attorney with more than 25 years of experience, he has guided individual inventors, growth-stage companies, and Fortune 500 clients through every phase of the patent lifecycle — from initial strategy and drafting through prosecution, portfolio management, and international expansion.
His engineering background is not incidental to his practice. It shapes how he reads a technology, how he drafts claims, and how he advises clients on where their IP is genuinely strong and where it is not. Curtis believes the most valuable thing an attorney can do at the outset of a patent engagement is to give an honest, technically grounded assessment — not just file.
Curtis's international experience is extensive. He has coordinated prosecution and managed IP strategy across the US, UK, Germany, China, and Switzerland, developing the foreign associate relationships and cross-border procedural fluency that international clients require. For companies with global ambitions, he brings a practice that can move with them.
As founding partner of BIPA, Curtis built the firm around a specific belief: that sophisticated, technically credentialed IP counsel should not require a large-firm price tag or a relationship with someone who never actually worked on your matter. Every client Curtis works with gets his direct attention.
CREDENTIALS AND BACKGROUND
Registered to practice before the USPTO. Engineering background. More than 25 years of patent prosecution and portfolio management experience. Active practice in US, UK, EU, and Asia-Pacific jurisdictions.