About

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Bentley J. Olive is the founder of the Olive Law Group and has over twenty years of experience in intellectual property matters including patents, trademarks, copyrights and trade secrets. His clients include research universities, large corporations, and early-stage companies.

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Mr. Olive’s practice includes preparing, filing and prosecuting patent, trademark, and service mark applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In addition, Mr. Olive assists clients regarding patentability and patent infringement matters. He also has significant experience with international patent prosecution, including PCT International and National phase patent prosecution. He also assists clients regarding the selection, use and enforcement of trademarks and service marks. Further, Mr. Olive assists clients with respect to trade secret matters.

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Currently, Mr. Olive serves as Co-Chair for the Electrical Engineering / Computer Software Committee of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association (NCBA). In addition, he serves on the Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Planning Committee for the Business and International Law Sections of the NCBA. He previously served as Vice Chair for IEEE’s Eastern North Carolina Section, and as Chair of the Patent Law Committee and CLE Committee of the Intellectual Property Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

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He has been recognized by his peers as a Legal Elite for Intellectual Property in the publication Business North Carolina. According to the publication, fewer than 3% of North Carolina’s attorneys made the most recent list.

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Mr. Olive is an adjunct professor of a patent preparation and prosecution course at the UNC School of Law and Campbell Law School. He also serves as a mentor for intellectual property in Duke University’s Duhatch business incubator. In addition, he has lectured on various intellectual property law topics at the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University, the UNC School of Law, UNC’s Carolina E(I) Lab within the UNC Eshelman Institute of Innovation, and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

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Mr. Olive volunteers pro bono services for the North Carolina Bar Association’s NC LEAP program. In addition, Mr. Olive has volunteered as a judge in American Bar Association law student competitions.

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Areas of Practice 

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• Hardware

• Software

• Medical equipment and devices, including medical imaging technologies

• Smartphone applications

• Cleantech

• Thermoelectric technologies

• Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs)

• Semiconductors

• Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS)

• Information Technology (IT), including business method and Internet technologies

• Nanotechnology

• Telecommunications, including SIP and IP signaling

• Microfluidics

• Construction test equipment, including nuclear-based moisture-density surface gauges

• Mechanical devices and equipment

• Flight recorder and in-flight entertainment technologies

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