For example, when intellectual property counsel is consulted aggressively several months before a new product launch, there is frequently time to discuss and easily resolve any intellectual property issues that may have arisen and potentially affect the launch. For example, if the trademark the client is interested in hasn’t been effectively cleared from a trademark search standpoint, there will usually be an ample amount of time in which to review the client’s preferred trademark, ascertain its availability, and, if a question exists regarding trademark availability, to resolve that question well before the final countdown to launch.
Formal infringement, validity, and enforceability opinions.
The firm’s founder has authored numerous formal non-infringement and invalidity opinions relating to patent, trademark, copyright and trade secret matters, for a wide array of clients, across a broad array of industries, for years. Opinion projects require a serious commitment, on the part of both attorney and client, to analyzing, in some detail, one or more important client products or services, and one or more specific intellectual properties of interest, and the opinion should be written with the expectation that it may someday be produced in litigation.
At the conclusion of the engagement, both attorney and client tend to win: (a) the client benefits from the confidence imparted by the opinion and the potential impact the opinion may later have in litigation; and (b) the attorney benefits from the greater long-term understanding he or she obtains regarding the details of the client’s business and marketplace environment.
Multi-firm litigation teams.
The key to success, when multiple lawyers from different law firms team up to serve the needs of a single client, is for there to be careful coordination of effort, so that, from the client’s perspective, it really appears that there is “one team” working to serve its interests. The founder is a big believer in effective coordination, and has a long track record of coordinating or, when asked, simply joining and contributing to teams of lawyers so as to provide whatever support the circumstance requires.
Intellectual property training.
Although intellectual property law has been described as one of the most complex areas of the law, it is also one of the most important functional legal areas in existence to a corporation’s long-term health and survival. Once the corporation’s executive team has embraced the idea of developing and monitoring an evolving competitive intellectual property strategy, there still remains the challenge of educating and motivating the corporation’s body of employees, in an ongoing fashion, as to how to proceed to capture and leverage its intellectual property so as to increase profits.
Structured, tailored training and incentives can yield extraordinary, and measurable, increases in intellectual property asset acquisition and revenue. Furthermore, one of the principal benefits of an aggressive training program is that the corporation’s officers and senior managers recognize at an earlier point in time how complex intellectual property litigation is conducted and, as a result, they learn, over time, how to begin, as a matter of course, conducting all of their corporate affairs in a manner which is in harmony with the laws governing our country and also the processes and procedures that govern the activities taking place in the courtroom.
The firm offers a variety of intellectual property – related training programs through its “From Ideas to Profits” training series. To learn more about the firm’s training – related service offerings, see the section of this website entitled “Training and Seminars.”
Intellectual property audits.
Because intellectual property rights constitute a form of intangible asset, it is extremely easy for well-run companies (even the largest multinational corporations) to overlook extremely important intellectual property rights and liabilities. For example, a lawsuit that, when originally filed, appeared to address fairly plain vanilla claims relating to product distribution and marketing activities, can relatively quickly morph into one featuring a host of complex intellectual property claims as well.
The formal procedures of the “intellectual property audit” ensure that key intellectual property disputes which should be included in the client’s appraisal of his intellectual property portfolio are, in fact, included and appraised.
Dispute resolution “on a budget.”
Small businesses need effective strategies which will help the company to maximize its intellectual property position while simultaneously minimizing cost (or at least spreading out the timing of the required cash flows). Believe it or not, there are numerous strategies that the experienced practitioner can employ to facilitate the client’s management of its short-term liquidity needs.
There are limits, of course, to the kinds of disputes that can be effectively resolved based upon limited resources; however, if the client and his intellectual property attorney coordinate their efforts with care, it is possible to resolve many kinds of disputes, in a principled and effective fashion, on a limited budget.
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