Loretta focuses her practice on patent searching. With over 27 years of corporate and law firm experience, clients call upon Loretta to perform patent searches critical to their businesses, including non-infringement, invalidity, right-to-practice, patentability, and due diligence searches. She uses the latest in on-line search engine technology, and the experience gained from working in science throughout her career, to arrive at her search results.

After receiving her B.S. in biological sciences in 1982 from the University of Illinois – Chicago, Loretta began work as a microbiologist with Helene Curtis Industries. Her work involved testing and challenging cosmetic and toiletry products with new preservative systems, now widely used, that prevented bacterial growth without potential risk to consumer users. In 1991, Loretta received her paralegal certificate from Roosevelt University. Once Helene Curtis was purchased by Unilever PLC, she began conducting business, competitive intelligence, regulatory, legal, scientific, technical and patent searching and analysis for scientists, attorneys, marketing personnel, and sales groups. Loretta’s last several years at Unilever were spent overseeing the conversion of its library from a traditional/physical model to a virtual/electronic model, where she was also responsible for training others on detailed and technical concepts.

For the past three years, Loretta has been working in law firm settings performing patent searches of the type mentioned above. Such searches are performed for clients ranging in size from small businesses and independent inventors up to large corporations. While capable of searching practically any technology, the fields where she has specific searching expertise include home and personal care products, food products and beverages, biomedical devices and compounds, chemicals, surfactants, and numerous mechanical and electro-mechanical devices.