How well a company develops and manages its patent portfolio can be an important determinant of business success or failure. Patents can provide important competitive advantages in the market; they can be critical assets in financing or selling a company; and they can create healthy revenue streams to supplement operating revenue. Conversely, companies that lack efficient patent strategies and execution can find themselves outmaneuvered by competitors or even blocked completely from key markets.

We help clients obtain patents and formulate patent-related business strategies structured to their particular needs. With a diverse team of licensed patent lawyers and agents, our depth and breadth enable us to handle patent prosecution, licensing and litigation in a broad range of technologies, with particular strength in life sciences, medical devices, telecommunications, software, computers, e-commerce, optical scanning, food processing, recreational equipment, sporting goods and toys. We are enthusiastic about technology and inventions and have a real passion for helping inventors realize the benefits of their work. Our firm has the administrative infrastructure necessary for filing, prosecution and maintenance of U.S. and foreign patent applications, so we can be responsive and reliable.

We have an extensive record in perfecting U.S. and foreign patent rights. We routinely assist our clients in developing patent licensing strategies, either separate from or as part of a patent enforcement strategy. We provide patent due diligence services to companies that are considering investing in or acquiring other companies. And we have a particular strength in helping research institutions and companies with technology transfer operations.

In the litigation area, we know that patent litigation can be costly, time-consuming and distracting. We help clients think through alternatives and, if necessary, develop a litigation strategy that best suits their business goals and needs. Once engaged in a lawsuit, we have the depth and experience to handle cases of virtually any size and in any part of the country.

Patent portfolio management
SanDisk Corporation
Ongoing
Our patent practitioners in the San Francisco office have represented SanDisk since 1988, around the time it was founded, and have helped SanDisk build a patent portfolio that has been widely licensed. SanDisk has received annual patent royalties of roughly one-half billion dollars for the last couple of years, almost all of which were generated from this patent portfolio that our group obtained. This portfolio withstood many challenges by competitors in major ITC and District Court litigation. We continue to help SanDisk in the procurement, licensing and enforcement of their patents.

Patent portfolio management
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
Ongoing
Our patent attorneys in the Los Angeles office handle domestic and foreign patent prosecution, intellectual property licensing, and a variety of research-oriented agreements for wide range of biotechnical and medical technologies developed at Cedars-Sinai. We support Cedars-Sinai's technology transfer operations, and provide strategic counseling to enable Cedars-Sinai to protect, leverage and enforce its intellectual property assets.

Patent services
AT&T Corporation
Ongoing
We prepare and prosecute patent applications for AT&T regarding telecommunications technologies.

Patent services
California Institute of Technology
Ongoing
We prepare and prosecute patent applications for Caltech in areas such as neural prosthetics, petroleum engineering and nanotechnology.

Patent services
Pacific Market International
Ongoing
We prepare and prosecute patent applications for PMI's Stanley, Aladdin and MiGo brands of consumer products.

Patent portfolio management
Voxeo Corporation
Ongoing
Our San Francisco patent practitioners manage the portfolio for Voxeo—a leading provider of premise-based and hosted interactive voice response (IVR) and VoIP applications—which has a seminal patent on running voice applications based on Web-type instructions (voiceXML) posted on a Web page.

Patent services
Clearwire Corporation
Ongoing
We prepare and prosecute patent applications for related to wireless computer networks, and support intellectual property due diligence efforts in connection with corporate financing and business transactions.

Patent services
Leviton (Voice and Data Division)
Ongoing
We prepare and prosecute patent applications relating to the company's data and telecommunications products.

Patent services
Stanford University
Ongoing
We have prepared and prosecuted patent applications for Stanford since 1985 in areas such as photonic crystal technologies, carbon nanotube, and capillary electrophoresis separation and detection technology that has been licensed to a large biomedical instrumentation company.