Walter J. Steinkraus, Attorney

Mr. Steinkraus is the President of Vidas, Arrett & Steinkraus, P.A.
He was born on August 25, 1949 in Chicago, Illinois. Following graduation from Lane Technical High School in Chicago, he worked briefly as a machinist.

While an undergraduate at Jamestown College, Jamestown ND, he was named College Fellow in Chemistry and also spent a summer at the University of Wyoming as a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellow. He graduated summa cum laude from Jamestown College in 1971 with a B.S. in Chemistry.

Mr. Steinkraus worked as an industrial analytical chemist in the Twin Cities area for several years while taking additional coursework at the University of Minnesota. In 1979 he graduated cum laude from Hamline University School of Law with a J.D. degree.

He spent four years as an associate with the intellectual property firm Schroeder, Siegfried, Vidas, Steffey & Arrett, P.A. before joining Loctite Corporation, Hartford, Connecticut, as an in-house patent attorney in 1983. In three years at Loctite Corporation he was promoted to Patent Counsel, given a director's award for his personal contribution to enlarging the scope of the company's technology and became principal inventor of US 4,808,638, for Thiolene Compositions Based on Bicyclic 'Ene Compounds. In 1986 he returned to Minneapolis where he joined Vidas & Arrett.

He has litigated a number of patent and trademark matters in various jurisdictions of the United States, including the case of Healing the Children Inc. v. Heal the Children Inc., 22 USPQ2d 1690 (DC WPa 1992), which he handled pro-bono. He currently concentrates his practice on preparation and prosecution of US and international patent applications in the chemical, medical device and general mechanical areas and on client counseling on matters related to patents, trademarks, trade secrets and intellectual property litigation.