Bio
Dan Vacar is a Patent Agent in the Office of General Counsel at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which is operated and managed by UT-Battelle, LLC. Dan supports the Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate, and the Exascale Computing Project; the Energy and Transportation Sciences Division and the Electrical and Electronics Systems Division of the Energy and Environmental Sciences Directorate; the Physics Division and the Additive Manufacturing Division of the Physical Sciences Directorate; the Instrument and Source Division, and the Neutron Data Analysis and Visualization Division of the Neutron Sciences Directorate; and the Nuclear Science and Engineering Directorate.
Before joining ORNL in 2019, Dr. Vacar was on the legal staff of Fish & Richardson as a Patent Agent (2008-2019). His practice included patent prosecution in front of the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office in inter-disciplinary technologies involving fields such as physics, electrical engineering and computer science. Dan prepared and prosecuted patent applications relating to imaging optics and optics used for illumination, image sensors and vision systems, quantum computing, user interfaces and human-computer interaction, computer graphics and animation, network communications, and autonomous vehicles, to name a few.
Prior to being a patent practitioner, Dr. Vacar was on the technical staff of Sun MicroSystems (2003-2008), OMM (2000-2003), and IBM (Storage Technology Division, 1997-2000; and Almaden Research Center, 1996). While studying for his doctorate, Dan conducted graduate research at the University of California at Santa Barbara and at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (1994-1997). Dan’s technical experience includes design and characterization of electronic components for computer and telecommunication systems. His technical experience further includes real-time tracking systems, and computer systems telemetry and prognostics; metrology, e.g., spectroscopy and interferometry; nanotechnology, e.g., light emitting polymers, ceramic superconductors, and micro-electro-mechanical systems; and laser-assisted materials processing.
Education
■ PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara 1997 Physics
■ MS, University of Miami, Florida 1993 Physics
■ BS, Universitatea Babes-Bolyai, Romania 1990 Physics
Admissions
■ United States Patent and Trademark Office 2008