Secure exclusive rights to a new device, process, substance, or design with patents .
Offering comprehensive and worldwide patent services.
We offer a full range of intellectual property services, including:
Patent Strategy Consulting
What are the different options for protecting the various features of your invention? Build a plan for protecting and leveraging your inventions through patents, custom tailored for your company's priorities.
Patent Portfolio Analysis
How can you tell if a patent covers anything important, or whether it's likely to be invalidated? Review your patents, (or someone else's), to determine their strengths, weaknesses, and value, with respect to your objectives.
Patent Field or Competitor Monitoring
What are your competitors up to? Learn how to find out when your competitors publish patent applications or receive patent grants in your field, and get a professional opinion on anything that concerns you.
Freedom to Operate (FTO) and Non-infringement Opinions
Will you new product infringe someone's existing patent or application? Reduce the threat of future lawsuits by having an attorney check before you start shipping products.Â
Patent Circumvention Consulting
How solid is your competitor's patent? We can work with your engineers to exploit gaps and weaknesses in existing patents.
Patentability Search and Analysis
Is your invention patentable? Find out what parts of your idea are likely to be patentable before you file an application, and decide whether an application would be worth the cost.
Patent Application Filing and Prosecution
Apply for your patent. We'll submit an application for your invention to the US Patent and Trademark Office, and defend it during its examination.
International Patent Application Filing and Coordination
Apply worldwide. We'll coordinate the timing and procedures of applying for a patent in multiple regions with our foreign agents and associates.
Patent Application Ex-Parte Appeals
Appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to overrule a stubborn examiner. The broadest patents often generate the stiffest resistance. Winning an appeal of an examiner's rejection is sometimes the only way to get the maximum value out of your patent.
Patent Licensing, Assignment, and Transfer
Buy, sell, and trade patents. We can help negotiate and formally record the transfer of rights to use your patent.
Infringement Litigation
File a lawsuit to seek compensation for infringement, or defend yourself against accusations of infringement.
Inter Partes Review Proceedings
Ask the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to invalidate an existing patent. Or defend yours against invalidation.
Innovation costs you time, cash, and sweat. It's time to secure a return on that investment.
You'll find our granted patents in many different industries.
Additive manufacturing
Aerodynamic features and control surfaces
Athletic clothing
Automotive braking and stability systems
Avionics sensors and communications
Composite materials and manufacturing processes
Electronic countermeasures and counter-countermeasures
Elevator systems and components
Fuel cells
High energy laser optics and control systems
Jet engines
Medical devices and prosthetics
Machining equipment
Molding and curing equipment and infrastructure
Outdoor recreational furniture
Piezoelectric materials
Personal protection and life support equipment
Self-driving software
Swimming pool equipment and accessories
And many more!
"The patent system is a crude attempt to nurture invention, and it works—sometimes." - Robert A. Heinlein
Patents grant you exclusive rights to a new device, process, substance, or design.
Article 1 of the United States Constitution gave Congress the power "[t]o promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
The Constitution's authors believed that innovation would be stifled if new inventions could be copied freely before their inventors had a chance to recover their investments.
Under the old guild systems, new technology would often be kept secret to preserve a competitive advantage, passed down from master to apprentice, ultimately resulting in many techniques being lost and reinvented again and again over the years.
The United States Patent system provides a different bargain, where inventors are given a temporary exclusive right to their work, in exchange for disclosing their knowledge so that it can be preserved for later use and development by others.
Patent Law Timeline
Here's how we can work with your product development process.
Concept Phase
If you're still in the early stages of design, we can perform a patent survey of your field to identify potentially threatening patents owned by your competitors, and work with your team to adapt their designs to avoid infringement. We can also provide non-disclosure agreements and counsel your marketing and development teams on how to maintain secrecy to preserve your potential patent rights.
Prototype and Testing Phase
As your product takes shape, we can prepare a non-infringement opinion or freedom-to-operate analysis to deter possible legal threats from other patent holders, and/or begin a patentability search to see if your new design is eligible for patent protection. Some of the best patentable material can come from design refinements made late in development.
Product Ready for Launch
Once major design elements are finalized, we can work with you to compare the most commercially significant features of your product with its most patentable features. If you decide those patentable features are valuable, we can file one or more patent applications to begin the process of protecting them. If you want to hedge, we can file a quicker and cheaper provisional patent application that will give you another year to test the waters before you'll need to decide whether to file a full application.
Prosecution
Your product can be listed as patent pending during the application phase, which, after an initial delay from the patent office, can involve several rounds of arguments exchanged every 3-9 months between attorneys and patent examiners. We'll keep you up to date on how it's going, so you can decide whether to continue at any point.
Granted Patent
A solid patent often deters trouble, but we're always ready to warn off potential infringers, recover damages caused by infringement of your patents, or defend your patents against attempted cancellation.
Let's find out if you've got a patentable invention on your hands.
Straightforward answers to common questions about patents .
What can be patented?
Utility Patents protect devices, processes, and compounds that are new, useful, and non-obvious.
Design Patents protect original and ornamental designs for an article of manufacture.
Plant patents apply to new and distinct varieties of asexually reproduced plants.
What can't be patented?
Inventions that have been publicly disclosed for over a year cannot be patented. Other unpatentable subjects include abstract concepts and ideas (e.g., mathematical formulae), laws of nature, natural phenomena (e.g., a newly discovered species of insect), and things that lack practical utility.
How long does a patent last?
Utility and plant patents last 20 years from their effective filing date, and design patents last 15 years.
How much do patents cost?
Price can vary a lot depending on the complexity of the invention, and the amount of resistance encountered from the patent office. A provisional application can often be filed for a few thousand dollars, including government and attorney fees, and an average non-provisional utility application - facing a reasonable examiner - will usually cost between $10,000 to $15,000 by the time it is granted.
Patents are one of several critical elements of a balanced IP portfolio.
Protect the symbols, words, or phrases, that are important to your brand or product's identity.
Prevent unauthorized use or reproduction of your original works of authorship and art.
Guard the secret formula, process, or strategy that gives your business a competitive advantage.