CareersTrade Secrets
Intellectual Property
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Our Trade Secrets Insight
A well-kept trade secret could theoretically last forever, but trade secret assets are rarely protected by patents and copyrights. Walter Haverfield’s well-versed IP attorneys serve a comprehensive scope of clients with trade secret law needs, from independent entrepreneurs and startups to Fortune-rated corporations, universities, and other research-based institutions. Our client’s trade secrets can include customer lists, manufacturing methods, financial plans, formulas and formulations, software programs, and business plans.
Our services involve a comprehensive approach to protecting trade secrets, including:
- Categorizing trade secret information that can be protected
- Evaluating and determining the value of a client’s trade secrets
- Conducting audits of trade secret assets and/or investigations of any trade secret misappropriation
- Litigating trade secret misappropriation
- Preparing tailored non-disclosure and ownership agreements for employers to utilize with employees and other third parties
- Preparing procedures for protecting trade secrets, which could include training sessions for employees, instituting new security measures to prevent wrongful disclosure or misappropriation, or creating a best practices hiring list for employers
- Drafting agreements for the licensing of trade secrets and unpatented technology, including confidential know-how
Strategizing other means to protect confidential information, which may not qualify for trade secret protection
Experience
- Preparing and prosecuting hundreds of utility and design patent applications
- Representing a client in the semiconductor industry in an ex parte reexamination proceeding, resulting in a reissued patent
- Working with clients in various technology industries including telecommunications, electrical and computer science, gaming, robotics, computer software, e-commerce, digital signal processing, semiconductor chip fabrication, financial services, medical devices, and the mechanical arts
- Preparing and prosecuting utility and design patents for high-profile domestic and international clients
- Preparing patent availability, infringement analysis, and freedom-to-operate reports
- Performing patent searches related to patent availability and patent infringement
- Managing all aspects of international and foreign patent applications including communicating with foreign associates
- Preparing thousands of replies to Patent Office Actions arguing for the patentability of patent applications
- Drafting over 100 patent applications ranging in technology fields from artificial intelligence, wireless communications, antenna design, semi-conductors and memory chip design, industrial automation, online banking systems, encryption, software-defined networking, and network function virtualization
- Preparing and filing over 50 new patent applications for a variety of clients having expansive technical fields
- Prosecuting numerous patent applications in the fields of medical devices, imaging devices, financial software, business methods, and more
