Ross Krutsinger – Secant IP

Before Ross Krutsinger started crafting claims with just the right language to protect a client’s invention, he was in a Nashville recording studio crafting just the right bass part to bring alive an artist’s song. For nearly a decade, he lived the life of a full-time professional musician in Nashville — performing, recording, touring the world, directing bands, and navigating the particular chaos of keeping a group of strong personalities pointed in the same direction. As he reflects now, in addition to one’s foundational skills as a musician, the music business is about relationships; similarly, in the practice of law, legal and technical knowledge are required for long-term client relationships.

Ross Krutsinger | Secant IP | Partner

“For some bands, I was the band leader and music director,” Krutsinger says. “There are a lot of personalities in music and entertainment — you have to keep a lot of people happy while also advancing the business end of the band. That experience has helped me a lot.”

Today, Krutsinger is a partner at Secant IP, a specialized intellectual property law firm formed on April 1, 2026, through the merger of two similarly situated IP firms, Finch & Maloney PLLC and Grossman, Tucker, Perreault & Pfleger PLLC. The firm focuses on patent and trademark prosecution, with a niche in combining deep technical fluency — spanning semiconductors, mechanical systems, firearms, and chemical technologies — with a litigation-aware drafting philosophy. The model is built to deliver sophisticated, big-firm quality at a more efficient cost, freeing clients to invest more thoughtfully in building durable IP portfolios.

From engineer to attorney

Krutsinger’s road to partnership was anything but direct. He earned a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and spent nearly eight years as a research associate working in electrochemistry, catalysis, fuel cells, water purification systems, and semiconductor technologies. Then came Nashville, the bands, the touring, the writing, and working with some of the best in the business for a decade of full-time music. Eventually, family responsibilities and a pragmatic assessment of long-term sustainability prompted a pivot — though he is quick to note that the music never really stopped.

His exposure to legal processes through real estate dealings, contracts, and entertainment sparked genuine curiosity about the law. That curiosity, combined with a background that straddled the analytical and the creative, pointed him squarely toward intellectual property. He pursued a dual JD and LLM degree in Intellectual Property from the University of New Hampshire School of Law, began practicing as a patent agent, then joined a small New Hampshire firm as an IP attorney before spending nearly a decade at Finch & Maloney — more than five of those years as a partner. Now, as part of the newly formed Secant IP, he carries that experience into a larger, more integrated platform.

He also brings that experience into the classroom. Since December 2022, Krutsinger has served as an adjunct professor of law at the UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, where he teaches Entertainment Law. In that class, Krutsinger teaches the application of statutes and case law to issues that arise in the entertainment business, as well as the street wisdom needed to effectively represent clients in entertainment.

“Intellectual property law may seem like a rigid or even dry field from the outside, but in reality, it’s constantly evolving and full of opportunity for those who are curious and willing to learn,” he says. “There’s no single path to success — people with a wide range of skill sets can thrive depending on how they approach it.”

Building patents that survive

At the center of Krutsinger’s practice is a straightforward but demanding philosophy: patents should be built to last. That means anticipating how a claim will be read not just by a patent examiner, but by a litigator, a competitor, or a judge years down the road.

“One of the things I instruct our junior attorneys to do is get in all the details when describing what something is,” he explains. “The examiners interpret things very broadly. Whether during examination or in litigation, sometimes these things turn on one word, and seemingly bland details can make a real difference.”

That forward-looking mindset has proven its value in a multi-year patent initiative centered on a handgun ammunition magazine — a commercially significant product in a competitive, litigious market. What began as a single application roughly nine years ago has since expanded into a family of approximately five related patents, each continuation of which captures a different claim scope. The portfolio remains in active litigation and has withstood legal challenges to date.

His creative background plays a measurable role in that success. Describing complex physical structures in ways that capture both form and function — subtle distinctions in language that define the edges of enforceable claims — draws on the same attention to detail and nuance that once served him in playing just the right part for a song or finding the right lyric. The skills translate more naturally than one might expect.

Complementing his prosecution work, Krutsinger has participated in six post-grant proceedings, including ex parte reexaminations and Inter Partes Reviews — proceedings that require a more adversarial, litigation-oriented mindset. His record across those cases is 6–0, a reflection of the same discipline he brings to initial drafting. Experience on both sides of these proceedings has sharpened his instincts about where patent language is vulnerable, and that knowledge flows directly back into how he builds new applications from the start.

The firm’s value proposition

Secant IP’s name carries a subtle elegance for a firm built around the intersection of technical and legal thinking. A secant, in geometry, is a line that intersects a curve — and as Krutsinger describes it, the name captures something essential about what the firm does: it sits at the intersection of technology and law, where complex innovation meets the practical demands of protection and enforcement.

The firm’s approach is built around the idea that clients with highly sophisticated technology deserve more than volume-driven prosecution. By operating with lower overhead than large metropolitan firms, Secant IP can allocate more time to a deep understanding of each client’s inventions and can assign very experienced attorneys to those cases — ensuring that the resulting patents are not simply granted but strategically constructed to endure.

That model resonates with the firm’s client base, which includes a German automotive components manufacturer focused on drivetrains, transmission systems, and braking technologies, as well as a firearms manufacturer with a broad product line spanning handguns, rifles, ammunition, and accessories. These are clients for whom intellectual property is not an afterthought — it is a competitive asset, and one that requires continuous, thoughtful stewardship.

The long view

Krutsinger’s goals, professional and personal, share a common thread. He approaches everything — law, music, teaching — with an intensity that resists half-measures. He wants the patents he drafts to hold up not just at the Patent Office, but years later in a courtroom. He wants the attorneys he mentors to uphold that same standard.

“The first work you do is built on the failures of others,” he says. “Patent law, like everything, is evolving — the changing laws, the changing technology, and how things are viewed. Inventors and creators want to protect their ideas.”

Away from the office, Krutsinger still writes, records, and performs. Guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals — the instruments haven’t changed, even if the schedule has. He also hikes and explores coastlines with his wife and son in New Hampshire, where the pace outside is deliberately different from the precision required inside. The balance between work and play, and between the technical and the creative, he has found, sustains the intensity rather than diminishing it. After nearly 20 years in the music business, and nearly as many years of building IP portfolios, and a merger that just rewrote the name on the door, Ross Krutsinger seems exactly where the winding road was always headed.