Sophisticated Guidance On Patents And Trademarks
If you don’t protect your intellectual property, then your business either won’t have anything unique to sell or may simply lose its competitive edge. If you’re a startup, intellectual property may be the only real asset you have. We help clients with the following:
- Patentability searches — At Slinde Nelson, we provide you with an understanding of patent and technology landscapes to assist you in making strategic business decisions for the procurement of your business’s intellectual property.
- Patent procurement — We assist in the development and implementation of a patent procurement strategy. Our insight then helps us align the patent procurement strategy with your commercial goals to turn a business idea into commercially meaningful patent claims. Slinde Nelson represents clients through all phases of patent procurement before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and throughout the world by way of a team of international associates.
- Post-patent grant proceedings — Slinde Nelson attorneys will structure a post-grant strategy toward your business’s overall patent objectives. Our focus is to represent you before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board during these proceedings, which include patent re-examinations, reissues, interferences, inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews.
- Freedom-to-operate and patent opinions — Our attorneys are practiced in rendering legal opinions and investigations concerning the patentability of prospective new inventions, the validity of competitors’ patents and determining the positioning of new products in the market and whether the product may infringe competitors’ patents.
Trademark Law
At Slinde Nelson, we work with you, collaborating on brand development to align a thoughtful trademark strategy for your business. Our attorneys represent clients through all phases of trademark procurement, including clearance searches, trademark application preparation and filing, trademark prosecution during the trademark examining process, and global trademark procurement management. We are also practiced in representing clients in opposition and cancellation proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
Copyright Law
At Slinde Nelson, we are practiced in taking advantage of the copyright registration practice to protect your ownership of artistic and informative expression within your industry. Our attorneys are skillful in integrating your copyrights with your company’s entire intellectual property strategy.
Trade Secret and Unfair Competition Law
Our Slinde Nelson attorneys help your business maintain or gain competitive advantage by advising on whether to maintain trade secret status or seek patent protection. We also provide strategic advice regarding the protection of trade secrets through carefully crafted employment, nondisclosure/confidentiality and noncompete agreements.
Licensing, Technology Transfer and Other Related Agreements
At Slinde Nelson, we have the expertise to help you structure and negotiate solid collaborative efforts and licensing agreements that meet your business’s objectives. Our attorneys craft contracts that properly allocate and minimize risk, including contracts specific to technology transfer and change of ownership. We study your business, intellectual property, markets and competition and, depending on patent events and anticipated regulatory events, we can resolve investment risk handicaps.
IP Litigation
Slinde Nelson provides patent and IP litigation services from start to finish, including supporting other lawyers and nonlawyers with litigation analysis and strategy, law and motion practice, and settlement. Our IP litigators can determine whether litigation is the right decision for your business by first investigating your or your competition’s allegations of infringement. We can help you through the entire process, including injunctive relief, declaratory relief, initiating a damages lawsuit, discovery, mediation, trial preparation, trial and appeal.
IP Management and Portfolio Strategy
Our attorneys are skilled in leveraging and managing your intellectual property by developing and implementing strategic processes that align with your business goals. We employ attorneys who have held in-house IP legal positions and who understand what it means to provide counsel to your company’s employee-inventors and stakeholders, while working with your company’s in-house counsel and legal team.
Trade secrets may well be among your most important assets. They can include anything from customer lists to complex technical analysis. Our intellectual property audits will help you identify, value and secure your confidential information. You won’t have to worry about misappropriation by employees, competitors or anyone else.
Curious about IP? Read our article, ” Covenants Not to Compete Under Washington Law” to learn more.
Our attorneys know business firsthand because they’ve founded businesses themselves, grown them, protected them and sold them. We are a business law firm rooted more in the business community than the legal one.
We know what it’s like to be in your position, and we know what it’s like when you need to hire a lawyer. We also know what it’s like to not receive prompt responses to phone calls or to be “nickeled and dimed” by an attorney who performs a series of unnecessary tasks for the apparent purpose of driving up the bill.
For that reason, our goal from the outset has been to become the sort of law firm that businesspeople really want. As you can see from our testimonials, that vision has resonated well with local businesses. And as you can see from the results we’ve gotten for our clients, we have both legal skill and business acumen.
Take Action
For a brief telephone consultation to find out if we’re the right firm for you, call us at 503-567-1234 or contact us online. From offices in Portland, Oregon, we serve clients in Oregon, Washington and California.