Global Patent Portfolio Management & Counseling
From patent procurement, portfolio management and transactional guidance through enforcement and defense, Benesch patent lawyers help clients build, manage and optimize the value of their patent portfolios on a global scale.
Patent Procurement
Our Global Patent Portfolio Management & Counseling Group lawyers help companies ranging from startup and emerging businesses to global enterprises acquire strong and broad patents and devise and implement patent strategies focused on giving them a competitive edge worldwide. We guide clients through all stages of patent prosecution, including patentability assessment, patent applications, examinations and post-grant issues and proceedings, including post-grant reviews, interferences, inter partes reviews, covered business methods reviews, oppositions and reexaminations.
Strategic Counsel
Benesch lawyers provide cost-effective, strategic counsel that aligns with client business goals. We maximize the value of our clients’ innovations and inventions through patent and technology acquisitions and transfer agreements, licensing and co-development agreements, and inventor assignment agreements. We advise on intellectual property in the context of mergers, acquisitions and other corporate transactions, and we negotiate, draft and enforce noncompetition, nondisclosure and confidentiality agreements to protect our clients’ creative assets.
Clients also rely on us for patentability, invalidity, enforceability, infringement, freedom-to-operate and product clearance opinions. We regularly conduct patent searches, evaluate prior art, and review the patents and innovations of our clients’ competitors when advising on and prosecuting patent applications. In this way, we limit infringement risk while crafting patent claims that will withstand challenge.
Patent Portfolio Growth and Management
Our patent team manages patent portfolios in the United States and throughout North America, Europe, Asia and South America, as well as in other parts of the world either through the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) or direct filings, ensuring prosecution strategies are consistent worldwide. Clients benefit from our ability to anticipate and overcome potential hurdles, identify and leverage opportunities, build their patent portfolios and coordinate patent strategies on a global scale.
Experienced in both crafting and enforcing patents – and well-versed in technologies, sciences and our clients’ businesses – we are exceptionally skilled in identifying patentable innovations and drafting compelling patent applications to meet examiner expectations and secure USPTO allowance. With a clear understanding of our clients’ technologies, we are also well prepared to argue convincingly to enforce our clients’ patents and to fight infringers.
Patent Enforcement and Defense
Operating at the forefront of innovation, our patent team advises clients at the earliest stages, meeting with their scientists and engineers to learn about what they are working on and regularly reviewing competitor inventions and patents. In this way, we can help identify patentable innovations, suggest changes to avoid infringing others' rights and swiftly file patent applications to protect our clients' IP assets. Clients also frequently call on our IP litigators to enforce or defend their rights in court. We have achieved an impressive record in favorably resolving patent-related disputes both in and out of court.
The Right Team With the Right Approach
Our patent team includes a former head in-house IP counsel, engineers, scientists, transactional attorneys, litigators, lawyers registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), patent agents, former patent examiners and innovators. We combine a well-rounded perspective with extensive experience in wide-ranging sciences, industries and technologies, including mechanical and electrical engineering, computer sciences, biology, chemistry, material science and metallurgy, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and energy, as well as emerging areas such as AI and machine learning, and a host of other areas.
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