Colin P. Cahoon

The combination of Colin Cahoon’s legal expertise with a distinguished career in the armed forces enables him to provide clients with smart, technical legal counsel.  As a former founding partner of Carstens & Cahoon, and now Of Counsel to Carstens, Allen & Gourley, Mr. Cahoon focuses his patent law practice on the energy, telecommunications, aviation, manufacturing, food processing, and chemical technology industries.  He counsels clients in licensing, technology-related transactional work, corporate mergers, and intellectual property evaluations and negotiations and has extensive experience in providing intellectual property legal support to in-house corporate counsel in a variety of manufacturing fields.

Mr. Cahoon has been involved in hundreds of litigation cases, many times serving as lead counsel through jury verdict.  Most notably, Mr. Cahoon has managed the prosecution of thousands of patents through national and international filings for foreign and domestic clients.

Mr. Cahoon gained “real world” expertise during a successful career as a pilot in the United States Army, where he attained the rank of captain, and while operating a consulting business “Cahoon Water Quality Consultants” in Salinas, California.  Upon resigning his Regular Army Commission in 1988, he was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal.  Mr. Cahoon holds a commercial instrument rating in helicopters, with more than 1,000 hours in UH-1 and OH-58 aircraft, and an instrument rating in fixed-wing aircraft.

His first novel, The Man with the Black Box, was released to critical acclaim in 2016. His second novel, Charlie Calling, was published in 2019. Colin’s third book, Mended Wings, a non-fiction account of Vietnam War helicopter pilots, was a #1 Amazon best seller in its category when published in 2021.

Mr. Cahoon is an AV rated attorney and licensed to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  He has been recognized as a Texas Super Lawyer® since 2012. Mr. Cahoon is a member of the American Intellectual Property Law Association, the State Bar of Texas, the State Bar of New Mexico and the Colorado State Bar.

He is active in his church, serving as Chancellor for the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Dallas, Texas, and having served on the Board for the Good Shepherd Episcopal School. He has also served as the Chair of the Dallas Bar Association IP Section Board. Mr. Cahoon graduated cum laude from Southern Methodist University School of Law in 1991, where he served as symposium editor for the Journal of Air Law and Commerce.

Mr. Cahoon earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from New Mexico State University in 1983 and in 2016 was recognized as a distinguished alumnus with his induction into the Sociedad de Ingenieros as an Eminente. NMSU subsequently honored him as a Homecoming 2016 Distinguished Alumnus of the university.  He is an inventor with four patents issued from the United States Patent Office.