INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Our Intellectual Property Group provides a wide range of services involving patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and litigation of such matters. Decker Jones attorneys work closely with our clients in procuring intellectual property rights by searching to determine the uniqueness of inventions and the availability of trademarks and service marks. In addition, Decker Jones files patent, trademark, and copyright applications in the appropriate governmental agencies. We also help to establish business practices that will protect our clients’ trade secrets, such as manufacturing processes, customer lists, and other similar information.
Members of the Decker Jones Intellectual Property Group also assist in obtaining value out of intellectual property assets through negotiating and drafting contracts, licenses, and other types of agreements. Some of our clients have extensive patent and trademark portfolios that serve as revenue enhancers. Patents can be utilized by a business both offensively and defensively. When used offensively, a business wants exclusive rights to the invention. When used defensively, the business wants only to ensure that it can use the invention, without concern for who else may use it. Decker Jones assists in evaluating these needs and also conducts right-to-use studies to determine if new products are covered by patents owned by other businesses.
Occasionally, enforcing a patent, trademark, or copyright against infringers or defending against a charge of infringement is necessary. In such cases, attorneys in our Intellectual Property and Litigation groups are ready to work together to assert or defend infringement claims in court.
PATENTS
Our Intellectual Property Group has extensive experience preparing and prosecuting U.S. and foreign patent applications and routinely counsels our clients on patent-related issues and strategies. Decker Jones patent attorneys routinely prosecute patents related to software applications, wireless applications, wireless content development systems, content searching algorithms and systems, compression-decompression algorithms and applications and web based business systems.
TRADEMARKS
Our intellectual property attorneys are also highly experienced in all aspects of domestic and foreign trademark prosecution and enforcement. Our practice includes matters involving infringing domain names, meta-tags and spam, as well as world-wide prosecution of Web-based trademarks. We are experienced in the preparation of trademark clearance opinions, domain name disputes under the UDRP and have argued a variety of proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
COPYRIGHTS
Members of the firm’s Intellectual Property Practice Group routinely counsel clients in determining whether their written, literary, musical, and other material is entitled to copyright protection and, if so, assist them in registration, licensing, and infringement issues.
TRADE SECRETS
We also help our clients protect confidential information as trade secrets and advise them when other intellectual property laws offer greater advantages. We counsel clients about how to keep valuable information out of the hands of competitors and how to protect it from employee theft or misuse.