Fredrik is Head of IP Attorneys at Noréns Patentbyrå in Stockholm, Sweden. He specialises in computer implemented inventions, including AI; electronics; medical technology; and mechanics.
Fredrik says the most rewarding aspect of being an IP attorney is continually learning about emerging technologies while helping clients turn innovation into value.
“I enjoy helping create tangible value for clients, bringing a new product to market, or protecting a core invention for a small startup.
“I also get to do so while meeting incredibly smart and creative clients and colleagues from a truly global community.”
“I grew up in a small village in rural Sweden and did not discover patents until I was 25. Now I’m the Head of IP Attorneys for a small firm, have had my own company, travelled the world, started a school in Colorado, and even beat a future USPTO director in an armadillo race.”
Adding value to clients
Noréns Patentbyrå is a small firm but outperforms by offering specialist IP knowledge from the US, Europe, and Sweden to give clients the best possible start on their IP journey.
Fredrik attributes this to “an excellent group of European Patent attorney colleagues” together with his own experience of practising in the US for nearly 20 years, complemented by several years in Sweden.
“Being a smaller firm also allows us to easily tailor our services to our clients’ individual needs.”
Every patent practitioner at Noréns also has worked in industry or academia, which gives them a deeper understanding of their clients’ situations and how to use the available IP tools to provide significant value, both in the short and long term.
A best practice to share with FICPI members
Each office day, attorneys, paralegals, and office staff take a short break around 14:30 to enjoy coffee and pastries, get to know colleagues more informally, and strengthen teamwork and collaboration.
Sometimes Fika can provide a good forum for brainstorming or having informal “polls” around various topics.
Allowing staff to follow their passions is part of the Noréns culture: early on in their careers, practitioners are given a good degree of flexibility so that they can pursue a specific interest in a particular technology area or a specific type of IP work, such as designs, opposition work, or due diligence.
“In our experience, when you work with things you enjoy, you often do a better job, go the extra mile, and get better results.”
The importance of technology
Fredrik believes that AI will significantly impact IP practice, and that patent practitioners will become more focused on a combination of strategy and claim drafting.
“I also believe that AI may have been used a bit “prematurely” in an effort to save costs and time by early adopters, especially by many pro se inventors, and we will not see the effect of this until a few years down the road.
“My guess is that when these applications work their way through the different patent offices, we will see an inflow of “problem applications” that need to be “fixed” in various ways, so addressing the backlash of premature AI use could very well become a separate and new category of work for us over the next few years.”
The next generation of staff will also be affected:
“As AI becomes more widely used, training the next generation of attorneys will become even more important. Junior attorneys who use AI from the outset may not be as skilled at spotting quality issues with the AI-generated work, which often looks very good on the surface.”
A recent interesting case
A Swedish software client needed rapid US patent protection but could not justify the cost of USPTO Prioritized Examination. Fredrik developed an alternative strategy using the Swedish Patent Office and the Patent Prosecution Highway.
Fredrik shares, “Not only did this save the client a significant amount of money in official fees, but they also got an allowance about a year earlier compared to if they had filed the first application directly with the USPTO, thus putting them in a much better position on the U.S. market.
“A very happy and grateful client sent our team a nice bottle of champagne, as a special thank you.”
Value of FICPI membership
Fredrik has been a FICPI member since April 2025 and takes part in the Practice Management Committee’s activities as well as FICPI activities locally.
Louise Jonshammar nominated Fredrik for Member of the Month. She is President of FICPI Sweden and Partner at AWA Sweden, and notes:
“Fredrik is one of the more recent members of FICPI-Sweden but he already actively participates in international meetings and contributes his experience and knowledge in the IP field. We are very happy to have him as a member, and trust that he will find multiple ways FICPI being useful to his career as well as continuing to contribute to FICPI.”
What Fredrik appreciates most about FICPI is the community and the different viewpoints brought by professionals from around the world.
“In FICPI, I am part of an international community of highly competent, professional and pleasant colleagues. It is wonderful to see how others approach situations and challenges, and conversations with other FICPI members provide an excellent opportunity to ‘think outside the box’.”
He also finds FICPI events, publications and committees a great way to stay current with recent developments in the IP field at large.
The truly global nature of the FICPI membership is also valued.
“I travelled to Australia this spring to visit my son who is doing an internship at a lab down there. While I was there, I had the opportunity to meet up with several very welcoming FICPI colleagues over nice lunches and exchange different experiences and practice tips and gain local insights.”
Final word – outside of work
Music is an important part of Fredrik’s life. He plays the piano at home and Ioves going to concerts and live performances; he sings in a chamber choir in Stockholm, sharing a few performances a year with audiences.
Living in California and Colorado for many years also gave him an appreciation of the outdoors. Stockholm has excellent waterways and a large archipelago, where he enjoys kayaking in the summer and cross-country ice skating in the winter.
“Having spent much of my career between the U.S. and Sweden, I love travelling the world, exploring different countries and cultures and sampling the local cuisine!”
Fredrik’s final advice is:
“Never stop being curious! Seize the right opportunity! It can be scary, but the rewards can be immense.
“Don’t underestimate the power of keeping an open mind and going the extra mile to say ‘yes’ whenever you can!”
Education & training
- 2001: Registered US Patent Agent
- 1996: M.Sc. in Engineering Physics, Lund University (with thesis work done at M.I.T., Boston)
Professional background
- January 2022 onwards: Head of IP attorneys at Noréns Patentbyrå
- 2006-2022: Founder, Mollborn Patents, Inc., Boulder, Colorado
- 2003-2006: Beyer Weaver & Thomas LLP, Mountain View, California
- 2000-2003: Fish & Richardson PC, Redwood City, California
- 1999-2000: Stanford Medical School, Stanford, California, 1999-2000 (Research Associate)
- 1997-1999: AWA, Malmö, Sweden
An insight into the Swedish IP system
Fredrik shares his thoughts:
“For a country of only about 10 million people, Sweden produces a remarkable amount of IP. Year after year, we rank among the very top in Europe for patents per capita. However, the feature that tends to surprise my international colleagues most is the so-called professor's privilege (lärarundantaget): unlike in the US, Germany or the UK, where a university typically owns the inventions made by its researchers, in Sweden the researchers own them outright, so it is one of the very few countries to have kept it while most of the world moved to university ownership.
“The Swedish system is also unusually international. The Swedish IP Office operates in English wherever needed, and Sweden hosts the Nordic-Baltic Regional Division of the Unified Patent Court (shared with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and is the only division of the court that runs solely in English. Having practiced under the US system for two decades before coming home, I find these contrasts interesting and a useful reminder that there's rarely just one "right" way to encourage innovation.”
