Talbert Dick opens his law firm in Hippee Building (Now Surety Hotel) on Sixth Avenue in downtown Des Moines. The intellectual properties practice grows quickly because of Talbert Dick’s attention to detail and superior client service.
Talbert Dick is the inventor for patent 1,693,889: The golf bag support. Over the past 95+ years this invention, a mechanism with retractable legs when the bag is set down, makes it more convenient and faster for golfers to rest and pick up their bags.
The law firm moves to the 500 Des Moines Building in the heart of the city.
Vibrating massage for decades was considered a good way to exercise. But most machines had only one speed. The Vibrating Massage Machine, patent 2,860,630 filed and defended by Don Zarley, offered an infinite number of speeds within certain limits and an easy way to change speeds. The invention made the exercise machine more durable, economical, and useful.
The law firm continues to grow. It moves to the Central National Bank Building (no Boatmen’s Bank Building), continuing a commitment to the central city.
The firm opened associations in other countries, significantly expanding IP services to clients with a global reach.
Today, McKee, Voorhees & Sease continues to serve at the intersection of science and law as an internationally recognized intellectual property law firm advising clients in 160 countries.
The law firm moves to the 24th floor of the Ruan Center in 1975 soon after Mike Voorhees (1970) and Ed Sease (1973) joined the firm.
Musco’s U.S. Patent 4,423,471 covered mobile lighting trucks used by ABC to light the first night-time, nationally televised football game at Notre Dame University stadium in South Bend, Indiana with sufficient and uniform light levels across the field required for high quality broadcast television.
Unique in the legal profession, McKee, Voorhees & Sease is a firm with fifty percent women partners. In 1985, Pat Sweeney, one of the first female patent attorneys in Iowa, began practicing at McKee, Voorhees & Sease. Today, five female patent attorneys are shareholders of the firm.
June 3, 1988 decision of “first impression” obtained by Ed Sease at the specialized U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Washington, D.C. It was the first time the CAFC had directly dealt with the issue.
An employee assigned all patent rights in his invention to employer Diamond Scientific. The employee left the company and marketed a product Diamond alleged infringed the patent. The employee answered the lawsuit by challenging the validity of the patent. Called “assignor estoppel”, the CAFC held it would be unfair for an inventor to claim a patentable invention before he assigned it, and then claim the invention was not patentable after. This was an important safeguard for companies or entities that receive assignments and patents.
Attorneys take an oath to support the legal profession and McKee, Voorhees & Sease attorneys have always gone above expectations. Significant milestones in volunteering include:
1989—Kirk Hartung elected as an officer of the Young Lawyers Division (YLD) of the Iowa State Bar Association which leads to his 1991-1992 term as YLD statewide President. Kirk later received the YLD Award of Merit for “outstanding service and dedication to the legal profession and the community.”
1990 —Mark Hansing named ISBA 5C representative and YLD board 1990-1992.
2017-2020—Jonathan Kennedy served as chairman of the Iowa State Bar Association IP Section Council.
2019—Luke Mohrhauser served as president of the Iowa Intellectual Property Law Association.
The firm moves to its present location, the 32nd floor of 801 Grand building.
For 100 years, McKee, Voorhees & Sease attorneys have shown their outsized commitment to the local community. From leading local boards and commissions to volunteering innumerable hours at non-profits, most commitments go unrecognized. Some major milestones:
1990-1992 — Drake University elects Don Zarley (’54) as Chairman of its Board of Trustees.
2011 — Luke Mohrhauser and an area Girl Scout troupe are recognized by the U.S. Patent Office for inventing a device which has helped a young Georgia girl with a limb difference write with her dominant hand.
2014 — The YMCA of Greater Des Moines bestows its highest recognition, “Service to Youth Award”, to Kirk Hartung in recognition of a lifetime of volunteer service and commitment to the YMCA mission.
Over more than four decades, multiple McKee, Voorhees & Sease attorneys have served as adjunct law professors, teaching Trademark Law and Intellectual Property courses at Drake University Law School and at the University of Iowa, College of Law.
The law firm has long been committed to paying forward academic and professional excellence by teaching next generations of IP attorneys. The firm is committed to positively impacting the future of the legal profession. Attorneys who have committed years in the classroom as adjunct professors include Don Zarley, Ed Sease, Mark Hansing, Mike Gilchrist, and Christine Lebron-Dykeman.
In a cover story in May, MIT’s Technology Review magazine touts the biotech patent prosecuted by our firm (Heidi Sease Nebel). The author relates five patents that he concludes will “…transform business and technology…”
One of these is United States patent 6,136,320 that we prosecuted on behalf of Prodigene, Inc. The patent relates to edible vaccines and discloses the making of transgenic plants that express viral proteins so that one could become vaccinated by eating the plant.
On December 10, our firm receives a favorable decision from the United States Supreme Court in an opinion heralded by many as the high court’s broad affirmation of the wide breadth and scope of patentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.
In the matter, Ed Sease defended Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont corporation, involved in the patentability of plants under the patent statute. The decision held that the broad scope of 101 includes plants even though there were other more specific statues that address plants. Legal analysts view this case as important in that the decision affirms the intended broad scope of the patent statute to protect a wide variety of technologies.
Penn State professor of plant pathology Yinong Yang’s multiplex RNA genome editing technology may produce gene therapy to correct defects that cause human diseases such as sickle-cell anemia and cystic fibrosis. He pioneers the successful use of CRISPR/Cas genome editing in plant systems, for which he filed an invention disclosure and a patent application in 2013. MVS attorneys prosecuted Professor Yang’s patents 10,308,947 and 11,702,667.
Marketed as CoAXium® to farmers in North America, patent 9,578,880 is a herbicide resistant wheat licensed to United States chemical company Albaugh and Franco-Japanese seed producer Vilmorin-Mikado. MVS attorneys wrote the license and conducted the trademark for the product invented by Michael Hal Ostlie, Scott Haley, Philip Westra, and Victoria Ashley Valdez.
Drought-resistant turf requires up to 50% less water and has saved hundreds of southern California golf courses and uncounted lawns. MVS attorneys prosecuted plant patents PP35441 and PP35357 invented by UC Riverside’s Turfgrass Research & Extension program lead researcher Jim Baird.
We are active in LEGUS International, a 30-year-old global network of diverse independent law firms serving members and clients. With approximately 70 law firms from around the world, LEGUS provides a non-competitive and trusting environment between members where they can share information and collaborate to create strategies, processes and visioning to serve their clients and manage their business for success.
Kirk Hartung served as Chairman of the LEGUS International Advisory Board of Directors from 2017 until 2019.
Iowa is one of 35 Licensing Executives Society (LES) chapters in US and Canada. McKee, Voorhees & Sease attorney Jill Link is a founding member of the LES Iowa chapter and served as 2019 Iowa Chapter Chair. Our attorneys have a long history of leading professionals and groups improving aspects of innovation.
Jill is also active in ChIPs, a nonprofit organization that advances and connects women in technology, law and policy.
Heidi Sease Nebel is serving a third term for the USDA on the PVP Advisory Board. The USDA PVP Advisory Board helps shape the country’s IP policy for plants through the Plant Variety Protection Act. She also serves as the Vice Chair of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Patent Public Advisory Committee (PPAC). Heidi is the only patent attorney from Iowa ever to serve in such capacities.
Post the COVID pandemic, McKee, Voorhees & Sease deepens its international engagement when Jill Link presents at the 2022-2023 Harvard Law School & World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) course with international practitioners focused on utilizing IP to stimulate production and distribution of technologies, including vaccines and medicines, to ensure preparation for future pandemics and assessing lessons learned from the 2020 pandemic.
Women are rarely funded when starting agriculture, medicine, and technology companies. In 2021, FIN Capital Investor Association launched as an angel investment group funding female-led startups in these areas.
Because of 20+ years of direct scientific, IP, regulatory, and business leadership experience, Cassie Edgar was recruited to lead as the angel investment group’s board Vice President. With decades of IP investment knowledge, she has helped the fund invest more than $1 million in startup projects.
In 2024, Lars Gunnerson became the LegalCORPS volunteer and first Iowan patent attorney to receive heightened recognition from the USPTO for providing continued pro bono assistance to financially under-resourced inventors for four consecutive years.
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