Waddey & Patterson, P.C.
THE WADDEY & PATTERSON DIFFERENCE
Maximization of intellectual property value requires a comprehensive analysis and understanding of your business and technology. It also requires an understanding of the costs and likelihood of success in enforcing that I.P. The extensive experience of our attorneys in providing complex strategic counseling in all areas of I.P. allow us to work with you to best protect and position your I.P.
Intellectual property is protected to further the company’s business. We understand the importance of understanding our clients’ business goals. Therefore, we learn your business as well as your technology so that we can tailor your intellectual property program to make you more competitive.
Waddey & Patterson is a midsized firm with low overhead that does not rely upon leveraging numerous associate in order to increase fees. The hourly rates of our senior attorneys are often less than junior attorneys elsewhere. Because our firm is run in an efficient and cost-conscious manner, our senior attorneys are not incentivized to over staff a matter. This allows you to have the skill and experience of a senior attorney at the cost of a junior attorney. Protecting your intellectual property becomes a more streamlined and value added process.
Given that we are a mid sized intellectual property we are not too small to handle big matters but small enough to provide you with personalized services. This allows us to have the skill and experience to do the things that only larger firms do while making sure that your work does not get lost with a junior associate with little oversight.
CASE STUDY :: HOW W&P ADDS VALUE
A client recently retained us to resolve a dispute with a major Fortune 500 company that was in fact a customer of the client. The dispute resulted from the customer having filed and obtained a patent on a system invented by our client and disclosed to the customer. The client assumed that litigation would be necessary.
Upon reviewing the facts and concluding that the client had a strong case, we contacted their customer, openly presented the facts to the customer’s patent counsel, and convinced the customer to cooperate in the filing of certificate of correction papers to correct the inventorship, thus achieving joint ownership of the patent for our client without litigation. Litigation would have most likely placed a significant cloud upon the patent’s validity and would have strained the relationship with the customer, both of which were avoided by the approach we took.
In developing a strategic approach to international filing for a client having a number of related applications filed within a twelve month period, we found several opportunities to consolidate two or more applications into a single application for foreign filing purposes. On each such occasion, the savings in foreign filing costs amounted to over $50,000.
In one case we were prosecuting an application in which we had copied claims from a competitor’s patent for the purpose of ultimately invoking an interference proceeding. During the prosecution we were actually able to obtain allowance of claims broader than the copied claims and we made the strategic decision to simply accept those and not provoke the interference because we had achieved most of the benefit we could obtain in interference with none of the cost and risk.
We have also been able to advise a client that a full Freedom to Operate opinion is not necessary in a non-core business area, by conducting a search for expired prior art covering the subject matter.
For another client, we worked with another company with similar interests, pursuant to a joint defense agreement, to obtain invalidating art and provide our client with an invalidity opinion.
AVAILABLE SERVICES
- Development of an IP protection program
- IP audit services
- Invention disclosure programs
- Freedom to operate opinions
- Patent and trademark monitoring services
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