In a business climate driven by constant innovation and commercialized information, protecting intellectual property is critical to success. Our intellectual property litigation team works with clients ranging from emerging visionaries to market-leading corporations to support and defend the ideas, designs, and processes that are the lifeblood of their business.

How We Help Clients

  • Prosecute and defend claims of infringement or misappropriation of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and ideas
  • Provide informed counsel and staunch advocacy for our clients through the litigation process from strategy development and pre-litigation investigations all the way through litigation and appeals
  • Create and utilize multidisciplinary teams to ensure matters are handled effectively and efficiently for clients
  • Work closely with attorneys at our firm who have advanced degrees or industry experience in engineering, chemistry, biological sciences, and other subject areas to bring a thorough understanding of our clients’ business, technology, and objectives.

Who We Are

Hodgson Russ has been awarded a prestigious "Best Law Firms" Metropolitan Tier 1 ranking by Best Lawyers/U.S. News & World Report in the Litigation - Intellectual Property category.

We represent clients in numerous industries, including:

  • Biotechnology
  • Manufacturing
  • Chemical engineering
  • Software
  • Children’s products
  • Entertainment and media
  • Financial services
  • Food & Beverage
  • Medical products and devices 
  • Nanotechnology
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Solar technology
  • Ballistic technology and fabrics
  • And more

Our clients benefit from our extensive experience representing both plaintiffs and defendants in matters involving all forms of intellectual property, including:

  • Representing clients in patent infringement matters involving a diverse range of products and services (including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, sports equipment, genetic testing, linguistic search engine technology, and nanoparticle coatings, to name just a few)
  • Representing clients in proceedings before the International Trade Commission, the agency which adjudicates disputes over imported goods that infringe U.S. patents, trademarks and copyrights
  • Bringing and defending challenges to domain names (ICANN and federal court proceedings)
  • Bringing and defending trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB)
  • Conducting jury and bench trials of patent, trademark, and misappropriation claims in state and federal courts
  • Obtaining preliminary injunctions
  • Working with patent prosecutors on re-examination proceedings and inter partes reviews before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board at the USPTO

Whether counseling on protection strategies in the conference room or defending our clients’ interests in the courtroom, the Hodgson Russ intellectual property litigation team provides sophisticated and cost-effective legal services focused on helping clients achieve their business objectives. Without the high price tag that generally comes with firms headquartered in larger cities, our attorneys have the breadth and depth of knowledge and experience necessary to help our clients protect their intellectual property rights and strengthen their competitiveness.

People

News & Insights

Podcasts

  • Implementing a Trade Secret Policy

    Regardless of the type of business or industry, employers understand that employees may encounter confidential information that should be handled carefully. That is especially true when trade secrets are involved, in which case, protecting sensitive and confidential information is of paramount importance.

    It’s easy to label something as confidential, but in order to successfully uphold that designation, employers must have a strong policy in place. Nathaniel and Elizabeth are joined by Luisa Bostick, a labor and employment attorney and partner at Hodgson Russ LLP. She discusses some of the best practices toward implementing a strong confidentiality policy, takes a look at the role human resources plays in implementation and enforcement, and looks at the impact a lack of policy could have on potential partners or buyers of the business.

  • Increasing Diversity in Innovation with The Diversity Pledge

    We’ve made great strides increasing diversity in innovation. This is essential to a company’s success. Yet, some groups as still underrepresented in the intellectual property process. That’s where the Diversity Pledge comes in. The Diversity Pledge helps companies better understand their strengths and weaknesses as they try to improve their statistics through best practices. The companies also share their progress, which helps refine the best practices. For example, experience shows changing terminology from “inventor” to “innovator” will net more participation from groups that may not consider themselves as inventors or that don’t usually participate in the process. In another example, making invention disclosure submission more accessible (preferably with feedback) has a strong impact to the number of invention disclosures that are submitted.

    Nathaniel and Elizabeth were joined by Suzanne Harrison, Chair of the Patent Public Advisory Committee at the USPTO, and Frances Winkler, Manager of IP Operations & Innovation Programs at Pure Storage, to explore some of the findings and learn how the Diversity Pledge was implemented at Pure Storage.

  • Using Australian Expedited Examination to Accelerate Your Global Patent Portfolio

    Australia is a big country (a continent, in fact), but it’s position in the global semiconductor market is not nearly as large.  Even though the Australian semiconductor industry is small, nestled in the country’s unique patent examination system is a pathway to accelerate examination of your global patent portfolio.  Expedited examination in Australia is free and can be requested in many situations.  It also can result in a granted patent in less than one year from the request.  Elizabeth and Nathaniel are joined on this episode by Paul Davis and Fraser Smith from Davis IP to discuss how a positive result down under can then be used to accelerate patent examination in other jurisdictions.  They also talked about how navigate Australia’s acceptance window during patent examination and some upcoming changes to the fee structure for Australian patent applications.

  • Litigation Finance: Impact to the Semiconductor Space

    Cost can be a limiting factor (or even THE limiting factor) when considering a patent infringement lawsuit. Staying under a million dollars in legal spending can be considered a victory of sorts for complex matters. That is a huge impediment to small companies and entrepreneurs. On this episode, we explore an alternative that may help level the playing field across high-tech industries: litigation funding. Nathaniel Lucek and Elizabeth Morris are joined by Justin Maleson from Longford Capital to discuss how litigation funding works and what makes an interesting case for a litigation funder.

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Intellectual Property Litigation / News & Insights