UB Greensfelder’s Intellectual Property Practice Group helps clients of all sizes with their intellectual property needs, including assisting start-ups and entrepreneurs in establishing and growing valuable intellectual property portfolios.
Intellectual Property (IP) refers to assets that begin in the mind or with a vision. All IP blooms from a great concept or idea. Whether an invention, an artistic or literary project, a symbol, a business name, a product name, or a slogan, all concepts have the potential for legal protection and financial benefit. That’s why we’re here.
How We Help
Many of our clients wish to launch and hold their businesses for generations to come, and we are here to help initiate and expand your business’s IP in a way that makes sense for your legacy goals. We also understand that many start-ups want to build a successful business with an eye toward acquisition in 5-10 years. There is a strategy for this as well, since one of the first questions asked in a brand sale situation is, “How is the IP?”
These two IP strategies are not mutually exclusive; plans may change over time. Whatever your needs, and however they may pivot, we are here to advise and guide in a way that suits your company and budget by working through the noise to identify what you need, what you may already have, and how to maximize and protect the benefits in these assets over time.
Your potential IP assets and protection strategies are vast, and the following is a non-exhaustive list of some of the IP assets we help clients to protect, enforce, and monetize:
- Trademarks: Words, Symbols/Logos, Slogans, Business Names, Product Names, Packaging, and Design in the U.S. and Abroad. We help clients identify, search, file, and register new trademarks; counsel on trademark growth in new product areas and markets; maintain current trademarks; enforce and defend trademarks against unauthorized use/accusations of unauthorized use; and license trademarks for third-party use to maximize financial gain.
- Copyrights: Literary and Artistic Works, Computer Software, Musical Compositions, and Architecture in the U.S. and Abroad. We help clients identify, file, and register new copyrights; enforce and defend copyrights against unauthorized use/accusations of unauthorized use; and license copyrights for third-party use to maximize financial gain.
- Patents: Inventions – Mechanical, Electrical, Biological, Chemical, Systems, and Processes in the U.S. and Abroad. We help clients identify, prepare, file, and register new patent applications; maintain current patents; obtain patent Clearance Opinions; conduct patentability and Freedom to Operate searches/opinions; create patent design-around strategies; and enforce and defend patents against unauthorized use/ accusations of unauthorized use. We are active with the start-up communities at Mhub in Chicago.
- Trade Secrets and Confidential Business Information. We help clients identify company trade secrets, draft agreements to build and maintain trade secrets, and enforce and defend trade secrets against unauthorized use/ accusations of unauthorized use.
- Internet: Digital Privacy, Cyber Security, AI, Domain Names. We assist clients with risk mitigation and counsel on best practices for use of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
- Advertising, Media & Communications. From concept to consequence, we help clients build brand awareness in a way that is protectable.
Representative Matters
The following are two examples of successful growth and sales scenarios:
- We helped grow a beverage company from a few U.S. trademarks to hundreds of IP assets worldwide and were thrilled to see it sell for nearly $700 million a few years ago.
- We expanded a dietary supplement company from ten trademarks in the U.S. to hundreds around the world and saw that company sell for $125 million.
