Few relish the idea of being threathened with a patent infringement lawsuit.  And most would prefer to avoid fighting such a suit.

Avoiding infringement suits starts with avoiding infringement.  And fortunately, there are many paths to avoiding infringement, including:

• identifying others' IP rights that might cover your products or services;
• determining what those rights actually cover;
• assessing the validity of the rights;
• explaining your interpretation of the rights to their owner;
• re-designing your product and/or services to fall outside the rights; and/or
• obtaining authorization to practice the rights.

No matter what type of intellectual property rights are involved, we can assist with each of these activities.

In the patent realm, identifying what patent rights are owned by others is the objective of the patent clearance search and opinion.

Determing what another's patent rights cover, and whether those rights are infringed is the objective of a non-infringement search and opinion.

Assessing the validity of another's potentially infringed patent rights is the objective of the validity search and opinion.

Negotiating why another's patent is invalid or not infringed can be a delicate exercise, which can evaporate a litigation threat, transform it into a lucrative business deal, or escalate hostilities substantially.  

Sometimes, it simply can be easier to design around another's potential patent rights, or to re-design the potentially infringing product or service. Based on our legal understanding of the potentially infringed rights and our technical capabilities, we guide our clients to successful design-arounds and re-designs.

In other situations, it can make good business sense to obtain authorization to practice another's patent rights, such as via obtaining an assignment of, or license to, those rights. We have deep experience in negotating and preparing such agreements.