Steve Udick is Director of IP Litigation at Klein Tools, where he leads the company’s intellectual property litigation and dispute functions, managing IP litigation and disputes, protecting Klein’s intellectual property, and handling IP risk management and clearance work. He develops IP strategy, shapes company-wide IP policy, advises executive leadership and the board, and partners closely with the product development and engineering teams to deliver business-focused IP guidance and to negotiate licensing, IP transactions, and dispute resolution. Before moving in-house, Steve spent more than a decade as a patent litigation trial attorney, with a practice centered on patent litigation in the federal district courts, inter partes review proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and International Trade Commission investigations. He has worked extensively on both sides of the docket, enforcing patents and protecting the interests of patent owners and inventors as well as defending companies accused of infringement, across technologies ranging from hand tools, mechanical systems, and jet engines to pharmaceuticals to cellular, networking, and video streaming technologies.