Litigation Services

Neustel Law Office can handle all litigation matters involving Patent Infringement, Trademark Infringement and Copyright Infringement.

Patent Litigation Avoidance Services

Avoiding costly patent litigation in the first place is a valuable service we offer to our clients.  To help our clients avoid patent litigation, we provide a variety of patent litigation avoidance services for our clients including:

• Freedom to Operate Searches & Opinions – Identify patents that you may have potential infringement issues.
• Non-Infringement Opinions – Determine if your product infringes a competitor’s patent.
• Patent Invalidity Searches & Opinions – Find prior art to invalidate a competitor’s patent.
• “Patent Fence” Strategies Against Competitors – Patent potential improvements to your competitors’ products to prevent them from improving their technology – and provide you with counter-ammunition if a competitor should attempt to enforce a patent against your company.
• Patent Avoidance Product Redesign Services – If your product infringes on a patent, you can redesign the product to avoid infringing on a competitor’s patent and thereby potentially avoid costly litigation and/or post grant proceedings.

Post Grant Proceeding Services

If you have been threatened with a patent infringement lawsuit or have had a patent infringement lawsuit filed against you, post grant proceedings at the USPTO are not only faster but are typically significantly cheaper than years of costly patent infringement litigation:

• Inter Partes Review (IPR) – Challenge the patentability of one or more claims in a patent on the basis of prior art patents and printed publications.
  • For first-inventor-to-file patents, an IPR petition can only be filed after the later of either (1) nine-months after the grant of the patent or issuance of a reissue patent, or (2) if a post grant review is instituted, the termination of the post grant review.  These deadlines do not apply to first-to-invent patents.
  • A final determination will be issued by the Board within one-year of institution of an IPR proceeding.
• Post Grant Review (PGR) – Challenge the patentability of one or more claims in a patent on a broad array of grounds, including prior art patents and printed publications, indefiniteness and enablement. A PGR petition must be filed on or prior to the date that is 9 months after the grant of the patent or issuance of a reissue patent. A final determination will be issued by the Board within one-year of institution of a PGR proceeding.
• Covered Business Method (CBM) Proceeding –  Allows a named defendant in a lawsuit relating to a business method to challenge the enforceability of the patent claims.
• Ex Parte Reexamination  – An ex parte reexamination proceeding may be initiated at any time during the enforceability of a patent by any person filing a request for the USPTO to conduct a second examination of any claim of the patent on the basis of prior art patents or printed publications.
• Interference Proceeding – Request an interference proceeding to determine priority of invention between a pending application and one or more pending applications and/or one or more unexpired patents.
  • Replaced by derivation proceeding except for patents having an effective filing date prior to March 16, 2013.
• Derivation Proceeding – Request a derivation proceeding to determine whether (1) an inventor in the first application derived the claimed invention from an inventor named in the petitioner’s application, and (2) the prior application was filed without authorization.
  • Only used for applications filed on or after March 16, 2013 (replaces interference proceedings).
  • An applicant subject to the first-inventor-to-file provisions may file a petition to institute a derivation proceeding only within 1 year of the first publication of a claim to an invention that is the same or substantially the same as the earlier application’s claim to the invention.

Litigation Services

Sometimes clients are not able to avoid litigation. In those situations, we offer cost-effective legal solutions to help our clients through those difficult times.  We understand the issues small to mid-sized businesses encounter during litigation and we will help guide you through the entire litigation process including strategies on how to attempt to shorten litigation.

• Patent Infringement Litigation (Defense) – Defend yourself from a patent owner seeking damages and/or injunctive relief to stop the manufacture of your products.
• Patent Infringement Litigation (Plaintiff) – Enforce your patents against competitors to stop the infringing conduct.
• Trademark Infringement Litigation (Defense) – Defend yourself from a trademark owner seeking damages and/or injunctive relief to stop the usage of a trademark.
• Trademark Infringement Litigation (Plaintiff) – Enforce your trademarks against competitors to stop the infringing conduct.
• Copyright Infringement Litigation (Defense) – Defend yourself from a copyright owner seeking damages and/or injunctive relief to stop the usage of copyright material.
• Copyright Infringement Litigation (Plaintiff) – Enforce your copyrights against competitors to stop the infringing conduct.
• Trade Secret Litigation – We represent both plaintiffs and defendants in trade secret litigation matters whether with a competitor or a former employee.