Patent Attorney Services

An experienced patent attorney can help you navigate the process of obtaining a patent.  They are familiar with the complex process of preparing and filing for a patent application and can help navigate the governmental roadblocks towards obtaining a patent.  In terms of Patent Attorneys, experience counts.

A patent is a right granted by the government which provides the inventor (of a novel and useful invention) the power to exclude others from making, using, selling, offering for sale or importing the patented invention. Examples of patentable inventions include machinery, medical devices, computer programs, computer systems and business processes.

Patents reward inventors by allowing you to exclude others from using your invention. An experienced patent attorney can help you file a patent application and protect your rights as an inventor.

The timing of filing for a patent is critical. If the invention becomes publicly known, or offered for sale prior to filing a patent application, the time for filing a patent may expire. Once a patent right is surrendered, the invention covered become part of the public domain and the inventor is forbidden from obtaining a patent covering the surrendered invention. In addition, the U.S. is now a First-to-File country, which means priority of a patent is given to the first inventor who files a patent application on an invention.

To protect your rights, we recommend that you contact one of our experienced patent attorneys to discuss how we can assist you with applying for a patent application.

In addition to being necessary for preparing a patentability opinion letter, a search is recommended to prepare the patent application and to draft claims in a way which would give the broadest possible protection to the invention. While some may believe a patent can be filed without conducting a professional patent search, at the Intellectual Property Center we highly recommend conducting the patent search. While it may be easier to draft the patent without evaluating the prior art, it will not provide the greatest protection for you or your business as you integrate the invention into your business model.

Click here to read about OPINION LETTERS.

Patent Enforcement

A United States Patent gives the inventor the exclusive right to the invention claimed in the patent. Any unauthorized user of the invention owes the patent holder for their use and may be sued for infringement. However, the burden is on the patent owner to prove infringement, which can be demonstrated in a number of ways, including literal infringement or infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

Literal infringement occurs if, when evaluating the claims of the patents, there is a correspondence between the claims of the patented device and the infringing device. Where a device does not literally infringe, it may infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. A device can infringe under the doctrine of equivalents, if it performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to achieve the same result.

If you have a patent that you believe is being infringed, you should contact one of our patent attorneys to preserve your legal rights. Conversely, if another person or group is claiming that you have infringed their patent, you should contact us to see how we can assist you with enforcing your patent.