Leace, Benjamin E.

Benjamin is a member of the RatnerPrestia’s Management Committee and devotes the majority of his time to handling litigation for our clients and the balance of his time in IP counseling and transactions. 

He believes that litigation is often a necessary cost of doing business that must be continually monitored to make sure that it is in line with the business goals of our clients. Litigation is a tool that is used in reaching a business goal, but is not the goal itself. This approach to litigation requires an understanding of not just the issues of the lawsuit, but our client’s business. Regular reviews of case status and strategy help insure that the case is on track with the business goals and that costs are not spiraling into a black hole. 

During Benjamin’s 25 + years with the firm, he has achieved many successful outcomes for our clients in litigation, including:

• A preliminary injunction in the U.S. and coordination of a multinational effort to stop the misappropriation of a global trademark;
• A declaratory judgment assertion of invalidity and non-infringement involving digital medical record storage and retrieval;
• The defense of a patent lawsuit involving  personal heart monitors/ electrocardiographic monitoring;
• The defense of trademark, copyright and trade secret claims against a regional banking entrepreneur brought by a multinational bank;
• The assertion of a patent involving electromagnetic monitoring of concrete pressure pipes;
• The assertion of a patent involving acoustical monitoring of structures;
• The defense in two patent lawsuits involving cough cold medicines;
• The assertion of utility and design patents and trademarks in multiple lawsuits against infringers/knockoffs in the portable lighting field; and
• The assertion of trademarks in the evaporative cooling/humidifier field.

Benjamin is also a regular speaker in the intellectual property field. His talks have covered a broad range of intellectual property and litigation related topics including: Trade Secret Discovery; 10 Minute Tips For Strategic IP Practice; The America Invents Act; How Reexamination Proceedings Impact the Strategy and Conduct of Patent Litigation; and Searching the Internet.

Benjamin holds a Juris Doctor from the Temple University School of Law (renamed the James Beasley School of Law) and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering (with a minor in International Relations) from Lehigh University.