Intellectual Property and Technology are the currencies of the Information Age, and the Intellectual Property and Technology Team of Adams and Reese stands ready to help your company protect and increase the value of those assets. Our team understands where and how technology intersects with law, and we command a broad understanding of intellectual property and the technologies to which its concepts apply. Our view of the legal treatment of intellectual property is balanced and integrated, keeping in mind that rapidly developing technologies occur amid legal systems steeped in traditions and principles that are often slow to change. Our goal is to help our clients prosper in this exciting and promising field by paving their way with timely, resourceful and critical legal advice and service.
Our Attorneys
Adams and Reese maintains an experienced team of full-time intellectual property attorneys with backgrounds in many technical fields connected to IP, including physics, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, biology, chemistry and computer and life sciences, as well as work experience in a wide variety of industries. Speaking the language of your industry and understanding the value of branding, trade secrets and proprietary solutions helps us to quickly assess and develop recommendations that will serve your business long term.
Core Practice and Clients
Adams and Reese serves a diverse group of clients in communications/entertainment, computer hardware and software, consumer and industrial electronics, chemical, oil, gas and energy, internet and cyberspace, and the optics industry, among others. We represent large international concerns, emerging companies as well as universities and research organizations.
Patents: Patents are the cornerstone of any intellectual property strategy. Our patent practice will help you assess your technology and create a strategy to protect proprietary rights. Our team conducts patent searches, evaluates patentability, prepares and prosecutes patent applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and handles reexaminations, patent licensing, technology transfers and outsourcing. We also render opinions concerning, and litigate if necessary, patent infringement matters across a broad range of industry and technology.
Trademarks: Trademarks and the goodwill associated with a company’s name is likely the most valuable asset of any company. The broad experience and knowledge of our attorneys enables us to provide legal counsel to identify, preserve and enhance a company’s trademarks and the reputation associated therewith, as well as enforce the right to exclude competitors from exploiting your goodwill. Our attorneys assist in the selection of trademarks, conduct trademark clearance searches, prosecute trademark applications before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, create and execute licensing strategies, enforce trademark rights and litigate trademark infringement and related actions.
Copyrights: We offer knowledge and experience in copyright protections for works such as software, fashion, musical recordings and literary works. We assist a variety of clients in advisory services, registration with the U.S. Copyright Office, assignments, licensing, contract development and negotiation and enforcement.
IP Litigation: Our attorneys also know how to enforce intellectual property rights or defend clients against claims of infringement. We have extensive experience in trade secret theft, confidentiality violations, non-compete agreements, antitrust litigation and investigation, patent, trademark and unfair competition litigation and copyright litigation. Our attorneys offer contract litigation as well as alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and civil procedures for business conflicts, including pre-litigation analysis and investigation. We have also represented clients regarding Federal and International Trade Commission issues.
Internet and Cyberspace: We advise our clients on the acquisition, maintenance and enforcement of rights in domain names, as well as the protection of proprietary rights to materials published on the Web. Our attorneys have extensive experience in dealing with specific Internet use issues, such as e-commerce, Internet law, cybersquatting, and with the intellectual property and commercial issues that relate to transactions and Internet use. We manage trademark and advertising issues and represent private interests in areas of public law that deal with the Internet (e.g. the Communications Decency Act). We have extensive experience in enforcing clients’ rights to domains through UDRP proceedings. We also handle enforcement and defense matters impacted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, including anti-circumvention issues and safe harbor provisions for online service providers.
Representative Matters:
- Copyrights: We advise clients concerning copyrights, register copyrights with the United States Copyright Office, and litigate copyright infringement actions.
- Commercial Litigation - Our attorneys have knowledge and experience in trade secret theft, confidentiality violations, non-compete agreements, antitrust litigation and investigation, and other areas.
- Patent litigation.
- Trademark and unfair competition litigation.
- Copyright litigation.
- Trade secret protection and litigation matters.
- Federal and International Trade Commission issues.
- Contractual Negotiation, Development and Litigation: Our attorneys have the experience to review and advise you on any negotiable instruments including all types of contracts, agreements, memoranda of understanding and letters of intent related to intellectual property and technology. We can help you develop contractual agreements that protect you and your business. If you find your business in conflict, our contract litigation attorneys are experienced in alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and civil procedures, including pre-litigation analysis and investigation.
- Computer and Software Protection: We develop and implement strategies for protecting software through development agreements, licensing, patents, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks and litigation.
- Communications Law: We advise clients concerning proprietary rights in material published in newspapers, books or magazines, or broadcast by radio, television or satellite.
- Entertainment: Our team members advise on, draft and negotiate contracts for music recording, music and book publishing, and movie and television production packaging deals.
- Franchising: Our attorneys have experience in the representation of franchisors with respect to their distribution networks both in the United States and abroad. We prepare franchise agreements and other ancillary agreements required by franchisors in their relationship with their franchisees. We also have prepared Uniform Franchise Offering Circulars for use by our franchise clients with respect to their activities in the United States, and have assisted in franchise registration in numerous states. When a client has indicated the desire to avoid the franchise pre-sale disclosure and registration regime in its entirety, we have also provided advice as to ways its business affairs could be conducted in order to accomplish that goal.
- Internet and Cyberspace: We advise our clients on negotiating over competing claims for domain names, as well as the protection of proprietary rights to materials published on the Web. Our lawyers have gained considerable experience in specific Internet use issues, as well as in the intellectual property and commercial issues that relate to transactions and information using this medium. We manage trademark and advertising issues relating to the Internet and represent private interests in areas of public law that deal with the Internet (e.g. the Communications Decency Act). We also handle enforcement and defense matters impacted by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, including anti-circumvention issues and safe harbor provisions for online service providers.
- Patents: Our team conducts patent searches, evaluates patentability, prosecutes patent applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and handles patent licensing, technology transfers and outsourcing. We also render opinions concerning, and litigate if necessary, patent infringement matters across a broad range of industry and technology.
- Software Technology: We protect companies' proprietary software and customized programming, and negotiate software-related contracts such as licenses and maintenance agreements. We represent purchasers of deficient software systems in their efforts for relief from manufacturers, and we litigate software system infringement issues. We also prepare and prosecute patent applications covering software and computer technology, including business method and Internet-related inventions.
- International Protection: We offer assistance to our clients in pursuing all forms of intellectual property protection in foreign countries. We coordinate with foreign specialty firms practicing before foreign tribunals and agencies, and we help companies organize and maximize their multinational intellectual property assets.
- Trademarks: We assist in the selection of trademarks, conduct trademark clearance searches, prosecute trademark applications before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and litigate trademark infringement and related actions.
- Trade Secrets: Our attorneys identify and evaluate trade secrets, customize programs for effective protection of company trade secrets, license trade secrets, and litigate misappropriation actions.
Representative Experience:
- Negotiated transactions ranging from multi-million dollar technology licenses or transfers, to Internet-related agreements for emerging companies.
- Counseled large and small companies on the development, management, and protection of intellectual property and technology management, as well as infringement and validity of United States patents.
- Represented clients in disputes involving patent, trade secret and unfair competition.
- Represented companies in claims involving new technologies relating to hardware and software for computer related components, software for flight simulators, hardware and software for communications network hubs, including routers and switches.
- Claims involving mechanical devices and processes relating to environmental cleanup, oil and gas processing and other systems.
- Companies in claims involving chemical components relating to metallocene catalysts and related processes.
- Refrigerants used as an alternative to CFCs.
- Litigated claims for trademark, trade dress infringement and trade disparagement, including Internet-specific claims involving cybersquatting and metatags.
- Performed audits of intellectual property assets and strategies.
Our attorneys have a practical, working knowledge of technology in a wide variety of applications from biomedical and pharmaceutical technologies to software and computer related products. Members of our team hold degrees in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, physics and other fields. One of our attorneys served as a computer applications and systems professor at a local university. Moreover, one of our partners is a former Washington Congressman who served 10 years on the Science and Technology Subcommittee, where he worked with federal policy makers.
By choosing Adams and Reese, you reduce the head count of experts, potential cost and failure rate because we can help you understand the risk, financing and insurance issues associated with complex IP development and enforcement. Many lawyers write patents; we help you understand the rationale for IP protection and how to leverage what you own.
