Jonathan D. Gereige did not arrive at trademark law by a conventional route.

He started in aerospace engineering and later served as an officer in the United States Navy. From there, he moved into international business, where he held leadership roles supporting complex industrial operations across the Middle East and Africa. He worked with people from different countries and backgrounds, often in highly regulated environments where business decisions had to account for much more than the bottom line.

Eventually, that path led him to law, and to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Jonathan was selected from among thousands of applicants to serve as a Trademark Examining Attorney. The training was intensive: several months of classroom instruction followed by months of hands-on training and mentorship. He went on to examine hundreds of U.S. trademark applications and write numerous Office Actions, addressing issues ranging from likelihood of confusion and descriptiveness to identification and classification, specimens, and other aspects of trademark prosecution.

Working at the USPTO gave him a perspective on trademark law that is difficult to get anywhere else. He saw firsthand how applications are examined, where problems tend to arise, and what can make an application unnecessarily difficult. Just as importantly, he saw the process from the other side: the side responsible for deciding whether an application met the requirements for registration.

His years in business gave him a different perspective. Through an Executive MBA and years of working with companies and organizations across international markets, he came to appreciate the role a brand plays in a business. A trademark is a legal asset, but it is also something a business builds around: its reputation, its relationships with customers, and the identity it creates in the marketplace. That business perspective continues to inform the way he thinks about trademark matters.

Jonathan holds a Juris Doctor from Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law, a Master of Studies in Law with Honors from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and an Executive MBA from IE Business School in Madrid. He also holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Boston University and previously served as an officer in the United States Navy.

He is fluent in Arabic and French and has a working knowledge of Spanish.