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Expertise & Experience

Mr. Phillips' technical expertise includes industrial and consumer products, electronics products, medical and scientific instruments, machinery, and chemical-process equipment. More specific areas of technical expertise include:

  • Building-construction materials, equipment, and tools
  • Chemical-process equipment: air separation, gas liquefaction, desalination, cryogenics, nanoparticles, pumps, valves, heat exchangers
  • Computers, disk drives, displays, monitors, power supplies, keyboards, laptops, notebooks
  • Consulting and finance
  • Consumer and home appliances: flame simulators, sump pumps, solar heaters, vacuum packagers, saunas, folding beds, razors, dry shavers
  • Contract product development
  • Data-storage equipment: magnetic disks and tapes, optical discs
  • Design of products, tooling, and manufacturing processes
  • Digital cameras
  • Document-, card-, and coin-handling equipment
  • Electrical connectors; wire and cable; high voltage
  • Electronic equipment and manufacturing
  • Engineering and manufacturing management
  • Engineering-change control
  • Fluid machinery: flow, vacuum, bearings, seals, and pipe fittings
  • Heating and cooling equipment
  • High vacuum
  • Horticultural equipment
  • Hydraulic equipment
  • Liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) and shutters
  • Machine design
  • Manufacturing and cost management
  • Manufacturing-process development
  • Materials: metals, plastics, glass, and ceramics
  • Mechanisms
  • Medical, surgical, therapeutic, and scientific apparatus and instruments; "pen" injectors
  • Mobile phones
  • New product introduction
  • Optics and lasers: welding, cutting, alignment, control of agricultural and construction equipment
  • Payment cards (credit cards)
  • Plant layout
  • Printers and cartridges, copiers, and scanners
  • Product and industrial design and development
  • Reverse engineering
  • Semiconductor equipment
  • Sports equipment
  • Stress and vibration
  • Telecommunications equipment
  • Test and reliability
  • Tooling

Highlights of Mr. Phillips' experience include:
Engineering and Manufacturing

  • Developed and introduced to production the first mass-produced product to use the diode laser.
  • Pioneered the one-man alignment laser, marketed worldwide by Nikon.
  • Analyzed manufacturing yields and guided wide-ranging design changes to improve manufacturing and reliability of implantable artificial heart.
  • Designed plastic submersible pump which achieved #1 market share through Sears, Roebuck. Half the cost of competitive models. Patented.
  • Designed ultrasonically-welded plastic cassettes for analytical gel. Cassettes met stringent criteria for flatness and cost.
  • Improved cooling and thermal stability of analytical instruments, to ±0.1°C, setting new standards of analytical accuracy.
  • Investigated engineering and manufacturing operations of new ventures in due-diligence teams on behalf of investors.
  • Created and taught course in materials and processes to graduate and undergraduate students of product and industrial design.
  • Designed cryogenic probe to treat prostate cancer using minimally-invasive surgery.
  • Developed high-voltage, high-power, resistive divider for fusion-energy research at a National Laboratory.

Management

  • Developed new-product introduction procedures for company experiencing growing pains. Recruited and staffed key engineering positions.
  • Established and installed engineering-change (eco) procedures which eliminated production bottlenecks typical of fast-growing companies.
  • Surveyed operations of plant fabricating heavy steel structures. The recommended changes returned the plant to profitability.
  • Advised data-communication-equipment manufacturer on restructuring the engineering and manufacturing departments following acquisition of a company twice its size.
  • Coached senior vice president of prominent disk-drive manufacturer on company-wide strategies for cost management.
  • Served as interim Vice President of Manufacturing, Manufacturing Manager, Manufacturing Engineering Manager, Vice President of Engineering, Engineering Manager, or Project Manager for companies in startup or transition.
  • In a "get-well" team, helped manufacturer of packaging machinery introduce effective systems to operate the engineering and manufacturing departments and respond to orders.

— Attorney Comments

"We retained Sam to assist us in litigation by formulating expert opinions relating to claim construction, prior art references, literal infringement, and equivalence under §112, ¶6. That litigation concerned a patent on a mechanical device and included an ITC investigation, multiple U.S. District court cases and an arbitration. The quality of Sam's work was evident in multiple expert reports, a mechanical model based on a prior art reference, deposition testimony, testimony submitted in declaration form, testimony under cross-examination, testimony on redirect examination, and testimony in response to questions posed by an arbitrator."

"Thank you for your significant contribution to the verdict we received in our trade secret case. Your testimony before the jury was clear and cogent, and the jury responded to your practical experience and common sense. After the jury was excused, I spoke to them. They made a point of saying that although the [opposing] expert had the most impeccable academic credentials, he did not appear to have ever "gotten his fingernails dirty." They went on to say that you were fully qualified from an educational and academic standpoint, but what they really liked was the fact that you had extensive hands-on experience in all aspects of manufacturing based on your wide-ranging work in a variety of industries."

"I would recommend Sam as an expert witness based on both his technical knowledge and familiarity with patent law. I needed an expert witness for a specialized mechanical field who could get up to speed and draft an expert report on validity in a very compressed time frame. Sam's background in this technical field and prior experience as an expert witness set him apart from the other candidates. Sam quickly understood the underlying technology with very little guidance from me, and distinguished prior art from the invention at issue. I was also pleasantly surprised by Sam's knowledge of patent law; I did not have to spend precious time explaining basic patent law. In fact, Sam knew about two relatively obscure secondary factors that I had never seen before. These skills enabled Sam to complete a finalized draft of an expert report only one month after engagement."

Samuel R. Phillips, PE

For a complete CV, including Publications and Presentations, please call 530-268-2413.

20812 Brewer Road
Grass Valley, CA 95949, USA

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