Rolf Claessen, Ph.D.

born in 1972, is qualified as a German Patent Attorney and is admitted to the European Community Trademark Office in Alicante (OHIM).

He studied chemistry at the universities of Tuebingen and Wuerzburg and then received is doctoral degree from the State University of New York for his research in chemistry and physics. He did his doctorate at the College for Nanoscience and Engineering in the field of chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of copper for semiconductor and nanotechnology applications, in particular for copper seed layers in DRAM memory chips. He synthesized novel organometallic copper complexes, built a CVD reactor, developed the CVD process and characterized the obtained copper films using various thin film analysis techniques such as RBS using a linear particle accelerator, AFM, XPS, SEM and AES. He was trained on all these analytical tools. After a short period as a researcher and product manager for a nanotechnology startup company, he trained for becoming a patent attorney at v. Kreisler Selting Werner from 2003 to 2006. He continued his education at the Lower District Court in Düsseldorf, the German Patent and Trademark Office and in the German Federal Patent Court. He qualified as a German Patent Attorney in 2007. He became a partner of the firm in 2008.

He is member of the Chamber of German Patent Attorneys (Patentanwaltskammer), the German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property Right and Copyright (GRUR), the International Federation of Industrial Property Attorneys (FICPI), and the German Chemical Society (GDCh). Rolf Claessen also maintains the website IP Newsflash (http://www.ipnewsflash.com), which is quite popular among his national and international colleagues. Rolf Claessen also does voluntary work as director of business development for the local chapter of Junior Chamber International.

His special interests are organometallic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, material science, software methods and above all nanotechnology as well as trademarks.

Following are some of his publications:

• R.U. Claessen, "Trends in Interactive Chemistry" Chemical Web Marketing & Technology 1997, 1, 5.
• R.U Claessen, J.T. Welch, P.J. Toscano, K.K. Banger, A.M. Kornilov, E.T. Eisenbraun, A. E. Kaloyeros, "The 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-2-sila-3,5-heptanedione route to the chemical vapor deposition of copper for gigascale interconnect applications." Mater. Res. Soc., Symp. Proc. 2000, 612, D6.8.1 - D6.8.6.
• K.K. Banger, A. Kornilov, R. U. Claessen, E.T. Eisenbraun, A. Kaloyeros, P.J. Toscano, and J. T. Welch, "The first metal complex containing a silylated β-diektonate ligand: bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-2-sila-3,5-heptanedionato) copper(II)" Inorg. Chem. Comm. 2001, 4, 496 - 500.
• K.K. Banger, A.M. Kornilov, R.U. Claessen, C. Birringer, P.J. Toscano, J.T. Welch, "A Facile Synthesis of 2,2,6,6-Tetramethyl-2-germa-3,5-heptandione: The Preparation and Characterization of the First Germa--diketonate Copper(II) Complex" Organometallics 2001, 20, 4745.
• R. Claessen, K. Reihs, P. Figueiredo, O.Stahlschmidt, A. Duparré, "TOWARDS A TRUE "NO-CLEAN" PROPERTY: HIGHLY DURABLE ULTRA-HYDROPHOBIC COATINGS FOR OPTICAL APPLICATIONS" Proc. Europ. Coat. Conf. Smart Coatings 2002, 181.
• R. Claessen, "Coatings for architectural glass" Glass 2002, vol79 no5 p171
• R. Claessen et al., "Durable coatings" Glass International, Sept./Oct. 2002.
• R. Claessen, "Reinigungsfreie Oberflächen in optischer Qualität werden Realität" Journal für Oberflächentechnik, Nov. 2002.
• R. Claessen, "No more dirty looks" Asia Pacific Coatings Journal, Dec. 2002.
• R. Claessen, "Recent advances in hydrophobic and hydrophilic glass coatings" International Glass Review, April 2003.
• Banger K.K.; Ngo S.C.; Higashiya S.; Claessen R.U.; Bousman K.S.; Lim P.N.; Toscano P.J.; Welch J.T.; "Facile synthesis of a novel class of organometalloid-containing ligands, the sila--diketones: preparation and physical and structural characterization of the copper(II) complexes, Cu[R'C(O)CHC(O)SiR3]2" Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, Volume 678, Number 1, 15 July 2003, pp. 15-32(18)
• K. Reihs, N. Malkomes, P. Müller, S. Renker, O. Stahlschmidt, R. Claessen, P. Cavaleiro, A. Duparré, "Durable Ultra-Hydrophobic Glass Coatings With Optical Quality" Soc. Vac. Coat. Proc. 2003, 46, 302.
• Claessen R.U.; Kornilov A.M.; Banger K.K.; Ngo S.C.; Higashiya S.; Wells C.C.; Dikarev E.V.; Toscano P.J.; Welch J.T.; "Investigations into the preparation of sila--diketones via 2-trimethylsilyl-1,3-dithianes: structural characterization of a second polymorph of bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-2-sila-3,5-heptanedionato)copper(II)" Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, Volume 689, Number 1, 5 January 2004, pp. 71-81(11)