Intellectual Property
Intellectual property is often a client’s most valuable asset. Miller Nash has the experience to protect that asset and achieve our clients' goals strategically and seamlessly. We offer a full range of intellectual property services for businesses and individuals, including procurement, enforcement, licensing, strategic advising, dispute resolution, and technology transfer. Our services span a wide variety of industries, including consumer products, food and beverage, higher education, biotech, and software.
Our clients rely on our attorneys' experience and knowledge of local and international regulations as they apply to trademark and patent portfolio maintenance. From the U.S. to Europe, Asia, and South American countries, we have a long history of securing IP assets across the globe tailored to our clients’ IP strategies. Our trusted network of local counsel further provides our clients with peace-of-mind, ensuring consistent and successful IP defense and prosecution.
Trademarks
Our attorneys handle all areas of trademark procurement and protection, both domestically and internationally. We help clear and register trademarks, manage trademark portfolios, develop enforcement strategies and licensing schemes, and file, prosecute, and defend trademark oppositions and cancellations before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB). Clients count on our advice on the trademark aspects of advertising, including fair use issues. We also counsel clients in the selection, registration, protection, transfer, and acquisition of domain names.
Patents
Our team addresses all aspects of patent law. We help clients develop and execute their patent strategies through all phases of patent prosecution domestically and abroad. We work with businesses and inventors to secure patent rights for inventions, and are well situated to handle inter partes reviews, ex parte reexaminations, and post grant review, as well as patent litigation. Clients’ business decisions are made easier by our answering of critical questions related to patentability, freedom to operate, patent validity, and infringement. We also counsel clients interested in determining the merit or worth of IP assets, including patent portfolios, for various business transactions.
Copyright
We assist clients in protecting and registering copyrights for all types of original work, including print, audio, video, software, website, and database content. Clients benefit from our counsel on copyright protection strategies, ownership, licensing of music and other protected content, royalties, rights clearance, and the fair use of copyright. Clients depend on us to help them navigate issues in cyberspace, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), online advertising, the right of publicity, and the burgeoning world of social media. We also work with clients that receive copyright infringement letters.
Trade Secrets & Confidential Information
The attorneys at Miller Nash counsel clients regarding confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, the protection of trade secrets, and agreements with employees, contractors, and others to preserve and protect proprietary information. We help our clients develop best practices for establishing and preserving these valuable assets.
Litigation/Dispute Resolution
We assist our clients in protecting their intellectual property rights by prosecuting infringement claims when their rights are infringed and defending claims when they are challenged. We also assist with disputes involving licensing and other IP-based agreements. When appropriate, our attorneys work with clients to develop alternative strategies to litigation, including structuring strategic and beneficial settlements, conducting alternative dispute resolution, and engaging in administrative proceedings with bodies such as the TTAB, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB), and forums that decide domain-name disputes under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) System.
Licensing & Publishing Agreements
Commercializing intellectual property rights through licensing is an important part of our work. Our team prepares license agreements for all types of intellectual property and provides strategic and tactical advice in license negotiations. We also review and negotiate publishing contracts for literary and artistic works, musical works, and video games.
