Overview
Sonal Agarwal is a senior counsel with Foley & Lardner LLP. She is a member of the firm’s Electronics Practice. Sonal counsels clients with respect to patent matters in a wide range of electrical, electromechanical, computer hardware, and computer software industries. She has significant patent drafting and prosecution experience in areas including, but not limited to: artificial intelligence/machine learning, including optimizing neural network processing, training models and classifiers, and applications utilizing artificial intelligence/machine learning; virtual and cloud computing, including database management systems, server/datacenter management, and disaster recovery; hardware, software, and fabrication of memory systems; computer networks and wireless communications; telecommunications; business method patents such as in healthcare, finance, and insurance areas; point-of-sale devices and associated software; medical devices; electrical circuits and components; semiconductor devices and fabrication techniques; microelectromechanical systems (MEMS); freight transportation and logistics software; off-road engines/vehicles; earth moving machinery; unmanned vehicles; internal combustion engines; exhaust aftertreatment systems; Internet of Things; and systems and software for managing food processing and supply chain processes.
Sonal is also experienced in IP due diligence, including patent landscaping, assessing IP assets, and agreement review. Sonal is also well-versed in leading inventor brainstorming sessions, risk mitigation by way of patentability and freedom-to-operate opinions, assessing patentability of new technologies, and patent portfolio management. She also assists with litigation and inter partes review.
Previously, Sonal was a summer associate and law clerk at Foley. Before Foley, Sonal was a patent engineer/technical specialist at an intellectual property boutique firm in Chicago, and at a general practice law firm in Madison.
Education
- University of Wisconsin Law School (J.D., cum laude)
- Elected to the Order of the Coif
- Dean’s Academic Achievement Award recipient
- University of Wisconsin, Madison (M.S., Electrical Engineering)
- Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, India (B.S., Computer Science and Engineering)
Recognition
- Received, Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch recognition for:
- Intellectual Property Law (2023-2024)
- Technology Law (2023-2024)
Publications
- Co-author, “Duplicating and Deconstructing Load/Store Queues,” Fifth Annual Workshop on Duplicating, Deconstructing, and Debunking at International Symposium on Computer Architecture (June 2006)
Admissions
- Wisconsin
- U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin
- United States Patent and Trademark Office