Services
We want to be part of your intellectual property (IP) team. Our IP legal services include:
Early IP case assessment
IP Litigation Template
IP audit
“Outside in-house” IP counsel
IP litigation and trials
Early IP Case Assessment
Our early IP case assessment (EIPCA) identifies and analyzes potentially key litigation and trial issues. Our EIPCA can inform and facilitate your decision to litigate, or not, and can yield better decisions, control and results in any litigation or trial.
Our EIPCA is distinct for two reasons. First, it rests on our significant, start-to-finish IP litigation and trial experience. Second, it is objective. We prepare our EIPCA without any expectation of being retained as counsel of record in any corresponding litigation or trial.
Our EIPCA is smart business because litigation is an investment. Litigation offers potentially significant rewards, invites potentially significant risks and typically requires corresponding outlays of time, money and effort. Smarter litigants are first smarter investors and smarter investors obtain potentially key information and analyses as early in the process as possible.
As noted above, our EIPCA is designed to meaningfully and realistically inform and facilitate your initial decision to litigate or not. Additionally, our EIPCA can transform into periodic IPCA (PIPCA) as litigation progresses. Certain issues or areas can be identified and considered, or reconsidered, as part of our PIPCA. In turn, deciding whether, and how, to continue the litigation can be sensibly and timely informed.
Our EIPCA also can be used to evaluate another law firm’s proposal for representing you in any litigation or trial.
Finally, our EIPCA can serve as the foundation for an IP litigation template.
IP Litigation Template
Our IP litigation template (IPLT) is a client-specific roadmap for pursuing or responding to IP litigation. It is a dynamic document informed by your specific IP litigation experience and our significant, start-to-finish IP litigation experience. It enables you to consistently and confidently hit the ground running and avoid litigation inefficiencies.
Our IPLT is premised on the notion that successful IP litigation typically requires a proactive, instead of a reactive, approach. In order to be proactive, a potential litigant has to be ready for IP litigation before it commences. Our IPLT enables efficient litigation readiness and a proactive approach from the very beginning of a dispute.
Our IPLT can be prepared independently or it may be a natural next step taken after our EIPCA.
IP Audit
A patent or trade secret can be a viable IP asset if it is legally sound. Our IP audit (IPA) properly assesses the viability of your IP by analyzing at least three components: (1) the IP itself, (2) the policies, practices, investments, transactions and procedures through which it has been obtained, maintained and leveraged and (3) its utilization. The scope and content of our IPA can be customized according to your needs.
Through our IPA, you will gain meaningful insight into your IP. You will be better informed as to whether your IP is an asset that legitimately can be leveraged or further leveraged and, if so, to what extent. You also will be better positioned to potentially improve your IP program and your resulting IP portfolio.
Importantly, the ideal time to audit your IP is before a conflict or opportunity arises. Then, when such an event occurs, you will be better positioned to act decisively.
“Outside In-House” IP Counsel
We are available to serve as your “outside in-house” IP counsel on an ongoing, periodic or project-specific basis. Our start-to-finish IP litigation and trial experience has taught us how to efficiently learn a company’s IP, operations and technology and the relevant marketplace. Using that same approach, we quickly can become part of your in-house IP team and provide practical, to-the-point advice on your IP matters, including IP portfolio development, IP litigation, including trials, and IP transactions, including licensing.
Retaining us as “outside in-house” IP counsel can be especially advantageous and cost-effective for a company that does not have an in-house legal department, a company that has an in-house legal department without IP counsel or a company that has an in-house legal department with IP counsel, but he or she does not yet have sufficient experience in a particular IP area or is spread too thinly at a given point in time.
IP Litigation and Trials
Our methodology in the courtroom is simple: be prepared, clear and zealous.
We have significant IP litigation and trial experience. We have been in the arena and have applied our methodology. Importantly, we have succeeded.
Our in-depth courtroom experience includes litigating, trying and arguing cases in federal and state courts, at the U.S. International Trade Commission and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Our experience in patent and trade secret cases has involved various technologies, industries, marketplace dynamics and cultures. We take pride in synthesizing the facts and law and compellingly telling your story to a judge, jury or panel.
We are a small firm, and we appreciate the complexity and significance of IP cases. As such, we also are available to work with another firm or firms as part of your IP litigation and trial team.