Things every client should understand about intellectual property disputes

What to do when conflict arises

At the risk of injecting a bit of humor into an otherwise frightfully important subject, the first three steps you should take when you sense that a conflict is arising between your company and another (whether related to intellectual property law or not) are:

Step 1: Call your attorney as soon as possible.
Step 2: Call your attorney as soon as possible.
Step 3: Call your attorney as soon as possible.

And, if there is a step 4, it is this:
Step 4: Call your attorney as soon as possible.

Why? Because, to state it plainly, lawyers are in the conflict resolution business. That is, while they don’t go looking for it, lawyers are nonetheless, by design, the professionals clients call when contemplating where their legal rights begin and end vis-à-vis their competitors. Thus, every single working day, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out, attorneys are called by clients anticipating or experiencing conflict. Over time, attorneys become skilled at recognizing certain patterns of behavior (patterns that recur over and over again), and, if you contact your attorney early on, you stand a much better chance of getting valuable guidance about ways to eliminate (or at least effectively minimize) the source of the conflict at an early (and hopefully much less costly) stage.