Intellectual Property
Our mission in the Intellectual
Property Section is to provide each and every inventor, author, artist, and
businessperson with the maximum protection afforded by law for his or her
valuable intellectual property. This is done with the highest technical competence,
attention to detail, and integrity.
At its core, one's patents,
trademarks or copyrights are protected through the filing of documents with the
United States
government. Our Section provides all of
these services, from filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) for eligible patents and trademarks, to filings with the Library of
Congress for copyrightable materials. Our
Section performs in-house patentability and trademark searches as well as auditing
and maintaining a client's intellectual property portfolio. Furthermore, our
section provides day-to-day guidance to our clients regarding intellectual
property questions or issues.
Moreover, protection of a
business's trade secrets involves the control of confidential information
(instead of its dissemination) regarding a product, formula, idea, information,
or business method. Our Section will
provide the client with the appropriate documentation and guidance to ensure
their company's trade secrets are protected. This may include trade secret
liability assessment, Non disclosure and non compete agreements, and security
policies.
In addition, our Section will
provide business consultations to aid in the eventual development of the
patented product, and provide how-to advice and guidance in turning an idea
into a marketable product. From there, a
business entity can be established and the symbols, logos and other marks
associated with the goods, service or business may be filed to protect the new
business trademarks.
An important aspect of
intellectual property protection is contract drafting and review. Before a person or business makes any
agreement related to any intellectual property, contracts must be negotiated
and drafted. Our Section prides itself
in taking the time necessary to properly draft custom tailored contracts for
our intellectual property clients, and conduct a meticulous review of each
contract provision to maximize our client's position in the agreement. It is this attention to detail that bolsters
our client's claims or defenses in the event of a contractual dispute or
litigation.
Protecting your intellectual
property may also mean enforcing or defending your rights under the law. When necessary, our Section will aggressively
litigate the infringement of your patent, trademark or copyright. We can also
defend a person who has been accused of infringing an existing Patent,
Trademark, or Copyright, which often entails disputes over who was "the first
to invent."
The attention to detail and technical
expertise that our Section demonstrates in the practice of intellectual
property law keeps our clients' needs and objectives at the forefront, and
maintains a working relationship which continues long after all legal work is
accomplished. Our clients are clients
for life. That is the credo which we
strive to live by on a daily basis.
Intellectual property law is
typically practiced by only a small percentage of law firms, and usually only
those that are larger in size and located in urban settings. This immediately limits the type of clients which
may approach a law firm of this type.
Typically, when a small business or individual inventor approaches a
large type firm, they are met with one large hurdle, fee payment associated
with the firm's excessive overhead. The
fees associated with even the most basic patent application filed at these types
of firms can exceed most budgets. Many
individual inventors and small businesses give up and turn away from obtaining
the Intellectual Property protection they need because of these high fees, many
individual inventors and small businesses miss out on obtaining the protection
of their valuable intellectual property needs.
One of our goals at The Law
Offices of Duane Stone is to maintain our offices in rural settings, in order
to provide an affordable alternative to the high cost of seeking patent and
intellectual property protection from the "big-city" law firms, while still
providing the same high quality product and personal attention to each client. Our Section strives to provide payment options
for those people or businesses that may not be able to afford the high cost of
patenting an invention.
Our clients regularly seek our
counsel with regard to:
- Patent prosecution
- Prior art patentability searches
- Patent portfolio audits
- Opinions of
patentability
- Opinions of patent and
trademark infringement/non-infringement
- Trademark
selection and clearance
- Prosecution and maintenance of
domestic trademarks
- Counseling, including portfolio
management
- Copyright
filing and maintenance
- Fictitious
name study
- Trade
secret maintenance and advising
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