Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Attorneys

Every day, you work hard to ensure that you are able to build your knowledge base and maintain an advantage over your competitors. When you have exclusive ownership of the knowledge and trade secrets you have amassed, you want to preserve the information as your own. Our law firm can implement and enforce legal measures to protect your intellectual property (called IP).

Business Law Southwest Can Help With:

What is Intellectual Property (or IP)?

Intellectual property represents an ownership interest or ability to control certain intangible rights granted by law, specifically: patents, trademarks, copyrights and trademarks. Contracts can also be viewed as a form of IP, if the contract is well-written to create, define and enforce an ownership interest in something otherwise considered insubstantial or intangible. Our intellectual property lawyers can help you protect your IP:

• Conducting extensive searches to ensure no one else has trademarked or copyrighted what you are attempting to claim as your own
• Registering, enforcing and dealing with infringement actions for trademarks and copyrights
• Licensing trademarks and copyrights to give another party permission to use them
• Protecting trade secrets
• Drafting and enforcing non-disclosure (NDA) and confidentiality agreements
• Developing software and technology licenses and consulting and distribution agreements
• Coordinating with outside patent counsel
• Devising international trademark and licensing strategies

From protecting your trade secrets to employment contracts, our lawyers want to help you protect what is rightfully yours and have the knowledge to do so in or out of court. We will take all necessary measures to ensure your rights are being protected to the extent of the law.

What IP is Right for You?

It’s often very confusing for business owners to determine what sort of IP protection they need for their business. Use this guide to help you:

• Trying to prevent others from using a name or logo for a product or service? You may want to look into a trademark.
• Trying to protect some sort of artistic work, such as a photograph, drawing, sculpture, poem or writing? You may want to consider copyright.
• Are you trying to protect unique and special recipes, formulas, procedures, customer lists or other secret or confidential information? You owe it to yourself to know everything you can about trade secrets.
• Are you an employer, hiring contractors to produce something for your business? Make sure you have such contractors under a contract with an “intellectual property (IP) assignment clause” along with a “Work Made for Hire” provision, otherwise, your business may not actually own the copyright for the very thing you are paying for.

Protecting Intellectual Property

If someone has infringed on your intellectual property, you have the opportunity to litigate to recover damages and other fees. Protect your intellectual property by contacting our IP attorneys today for a free and honest evaluation for your case.