Practice Areas
Seven practice areas, all transactional, all handled personally. Most matters draw on more than one, which is the point of keeping them under one roof.
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The core of the practice since 1999. Patentability searches with written opinions so you know where you stand before spending real money, application drafting for mechanical, electromechanical, software-implemented, and consumer product inventions, prosecution before the USPTO through allowance, and freedom to operate and validity opinions when you need to know whether a path is clear.
If what you want is a fixed price utility patent for a physical product on a defined one year schedule, that productized service lives at my companion firm, Patent My Product, PLC. Everything that does not fit a fixed mold belongs here.
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When the value is in how a product looks rather than how it works, a design patent is faster and far less expensive than a utility filing, and often the right complement to one. I handle design patent drawings, filing, and prosecution, and advise on when a design filing, a utility filing, or both is the right protection for a product line.
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A provisional application buys you twelve months of "patent pending" and a locked filing date for a fraction of the cost of a full application, when it is drafted to actually support the later claims. I draft provisionals to that standard, not as a formality.
When your market is bigger than the United States, I file and manage PCT international applications, coordinate national phase entries with trusted foreign counsel, and help you decide which countries are worth the money, because most are not, and that is exactly the kind of straight answer you should expect.
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Your name and logo are often the most valuable IP you own. I run clearance searches before you commit to a brand, file and prosecute federal registrations, respond to office actions, and manage renewals and statements of use so registrations never lapse. For brands selling abroad, I handle international registration through the Madrid system.
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Registration with the Copyright Office for software, manuals, marketing content, photography, and other creative works, plus the licenses and work for hire agreements that determine who actually owns what your business produces. Registration is inexpensive insurance; it is the ticket to federal court and statutory damages if you ever need them.
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Some technology is worth more unpublished. I help you decide what to patent and what to keep secret, then build the protection that secrecy legally requires: confidentiality agreements, employee and vendor policies, and exit procedures that hold up because they were drafted by someone who has watched the sloppy versions fail in court.
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IP earns its keep through deals: licenses, assignments, joint development agreements, manufacturing and supply terms, NDAs, and the IP provisions buried inside larger contracts. As a former company operator who built and exited a business of my own, I have negotiated these from the business chair as well as the counsel chair, and I draft them to be operated, not just signed.
One scope note: this is a transactional practice, and I do not take litigation. If a matter is headed to court, I will say so early and help you engage the right trial counsel.
