1790 — Congress passes the first copyright law, ensuring books and maps are protected from copying but also ensuring ideas and information in published works can be used freely.
1996 — Congress passes the Economic Espionage Act, making it a federal crime to improperly use or access secret ideas, data, processes, and other valuable trade secrets.
Intellectual property — the foundation for the protection of ideas, art, literature, science, and brands — is synonymous with creativity, innovation, culture, and competition. Our intellectual property services are integral to our clients’ strategic deployment of their IP assets.
Our clients include software and technology services providers, biomedical start-ups, suppliers to the automotive industry, nonprofits, advertising agencies, inventors, educational institutions, and museums. Regardless of size or corporate characteristics, our clients share the spirit of imagination and inventiveness.
Our IP attorneys act as mediators, arbitrators, and expert witnesses. We are regularly asked to lecture on IP issues for continuing legal education programs and have created courses for business lawyers on the protection of IP-based business assets. We have been appointed as adjunct professors in the field of intellectual property, hold positions on local, state, and national bar association committees, write articles for a variety of publications on intellectual property matters, deliver keynote addresses at conferences, and are interviewed by journalists reporting on intellectual property news.
Our legal services support the Michigan film industry. We have expertise in financing, production agreements, contracts with authors for movie rights, screenwriter contracts, copyright and trademark protection and licensing, rights of publicity, merchandising, guild contracts, and leasing of real estate.
We defeated a preliminary injunction targeted to prevent a small software client from hiring a new vice president of product development from the second largest company in the industry.
We enjoined a client’s former employees who had taken customer lists and other confidential information to start a competing enterprise.
Our attorneys represented a leading provider of information technology management services in negotiations with one of the largest telecommunications companies regarding an applications service provider arrangement. The negotiations uncovered a flaw in the vendor’s management of highly sensitive information.
We prevented the importation into the U.S. of goods that infringed our client’s trademark.
We negotiated a multimillion-dollar naming rights agreement on behalf of a professional sports franchise.
We represented numerous technology and biotech companies in the licensing of inventions from universities.
Our firm counseled online providers of goods and information in start-up activities, standard online agreements, web site terms and policies, and other intellectual property matters.
We represented a commercial provider of copying services to students and professors in a national copyright fair use case.
Our attorneys counseled the nation’s largest provider of support software and services to small investors and investment clubs in the negotiation of an online data redistribution agreement with a large provider of stock and mutual fund data.
We represented a provider of vendor-managed inventory software and services in the negotiation of services and software development agreements, and in dispute resolution, with a major motion picture studio and two music companies.
Our firm represented a major software developer in copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation litigation against the largest competitor in their industry.