Practice Areas

Patents

We provide advice and representation in all aspects of patent protection, including consultation; filing and prosecution of patent applications; infringement and validity studies; drafting, negotiating, and recording assignments, licenses, and technology transfer agreements; and litigation to assert and defend patent rights. We are well versed in all areas of practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including filing, prosecution, reexamination, reissue, appeal, and interference actions.

Our areas of scientific expertise encompass all major technical disciplines, including the Electrical, Mechanical and Chemical Arts. We also maintain a strong International patent practice, with clients and filing agent relationships in Canada, Europe, East Asia, and other parts of the world.  

Trademarks

Our trademark practice includes consultation in the selection of distinctive trademarks; performing trademark clearance investigations; preparing and filing applications for trademark registration in the United States; coordinating the procurement of foreign trademark registrations; maintaining and renewing registrations worldwide; performing "watch" for potentially conflicting trademark applications; rendering infringement opinions; drafting, negotiating, and recording assignments, licenses, and other agreements; and litigation including trademark rights and contacts.  

Copyrights

Our copyright practice includes drafting employment and other agreements concerning the creation of copyrightable works; preparing and filing applications for U.S. copyright registration; coordinating the procurement of foreign copyright registrations; rendering infringement opinions; drafting, negotiating, and recording assignments, licenses, and other agreements; and litigation involving copyright ownership and infringement.  

Trade Secrets

We provide recommendations regarding procedures for maintaining competitively valuable information as secret; employment, confidential disclosures, and other agreements respecting the creation and limited dissemination and use of trade secret information; and litigation involving trade secret misappropriation.  

Litigation

Our firm has a lean, tough, and expert litigation team that can tackle any intellectual property lawsuit against any opponent.  A substantial portion of the firm's work involves litigation of a diverse range of cases. We routinely handle cases involving patent, trademark, and copyright infringement, invention rights, trade secret misappropriation, and licenses and other contracts. 

Our attorneys are adept at handling all types of litigation-from contested proceedings at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, to arbitration, to lawsuits in State and Federal courts. We also handle all aspects of litigation such as pre-suit investigations, selecting a preferred forum, obtaining evidence, conducting preliminary injunctions and other hearings, trying cases to both judges and juries, and arguing appeals.

Much of our best litigation work, however, never reaches the courtroom. We strive to avoid litigation for our clients through the conduct of proactive liability-avoidance research and through mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods.

One note about size.  Some large, general practice firms might have more "litigators" (who usually are not practitioners of patent or trademark law) available to be thrown at an intellectual property lawsuit.  Such firms usually have a stable of inexperienced associate attorneys, often with little or no technical background, who are pressured to bill large numbers of hours on litigation matters.  The result often is a mix of inefficiency and overkill, all of which ends up costing clients significant money.