James J. Sales is an of counsel member of the Intellectual Property Department in Barnes & Thornburg LLP's Indianapolis, Indiana office.
Prior to joining Barnes & Thornburg, Mr. Sales was general patent counsel for JohnsonDiversey, Inc. in Wisconsin. His responsibilities there included overall global intellectual patent management, including development and implementation of overall company intellectual property strategies and policies; patent portfolio management; in and out licensing of intellectual property; litigation management; acquisitions/dispositions intellectual property due diligence; management of IP group, and budgeting. Prior to this, Mr. Sales was in-house counsel for Eli Lilly and Company for over 14 years, in various capacities, including director of European patent operations. During his tenure at Eli Lilly and Company, Mr. Sales focused on client counseling for pharmaceutical R&D and marketing teams along the entire development timeline, including post-launch product teams and teams in early development. He has experience in global patent portfolio and exclusivity creation, legal opinions, product life-cycle planning, Hatch-Waxman litigation strategy and support, transactional work, international patent procurement and enforcement, as well as considerable managerial experience.
Mr. Sales earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 1985. He received his J.D. from the Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis in 1988.
Mr. Sales in admitted to practice in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the United States District Court for the District of Illinois, and the states of Indiana and Illinois. He is a member of the Indiana State Bar Association, the Illinois State Bar Association, the American Intellectual Property Law Association, and the Patent and Trademark Office Society.