Pro bono publico, usually shortened to pro bono, is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. The term traditionally referred to provision of legal services by legal professionals for people who are unable to afford them. More recently, the term is used to describe specialist services provided by any professional free of charge to an individual or community.
Schwegman Lundberg & Woessner, P.A. is a Minneapolis, Minnesota based intellectual property law firm founded by three attorneys in December 1993. The firm was one of the first patent law firms in the United States to focus solely on patent prosecution and not on patent litigation.
A boutique law firm is a law firm specializing in a niche area of law practice. While a general practice law firm includes a variety of unrelated practice areas within a single firm, a boutique firm specializes in one or a select few practice areas. There may be some confusion as legal publications may refer to any small- or mid-sized firm as a boutique, though generally firms with fewer than 100 attorneys would count. Boutique should apply to those firms that focus on particular areas, regardless of size, though they are typically smaller, with exception to a few firms such as Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner or Fish & Richardson with over 400 attorneys.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP is a global white shoe law firm headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The firm employs approximately 800 attorneys throughout 33 offices around the world.
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP, commonly known as Finnegan, is an international intellectual property law firm based in Washington, DC, United States. Finnegan was founded on March 1, 1965, by Marc Finnegan and Douglas Henderson in Washington, DC. It is one of the largest law firms focusing exclusively on the practice of intellectual property (IP) law, practicing all aspects of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret law, including counseling, prosecution, licensing, and litigation. Finnegan, also represents clients on IP issues related to U.S. and European patents and trademarks, international trade, portfolio management, the Internet, e-commerce, government contracts, antitrust, and unfair competition.
Managing Intellectual Property is a British media group which specializes in providing news and analysis on the intellectual property world. Initially launched as a monthly magazine reporting patent and trademark-related news in 1990, Managing IP has since grown to encompass data analysis, podcasts, conference reporting, rankings and research projects, as well as the longest-running awards programme for law firms in the IP world.
Oblon, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, L.L.P. is an intellectual property law firm in Alexandria, Virginia. Founded in 1968 by Norman F. Oblon, Oblon is one of the largest law firms in the United States focusing exclusively on intellectual property law. The law firm performs trademark and patent prosecution, as well as litigation and Post-Grant Proceedings before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). The firm has been ranked first among law firms based on the number of utility patent applications filed per annum for 27 years.
An intellectual property broker mediates between the buyer and seller of intellectual property (IP) and may manage the many steps in the process of creating a deal with regard to the purchase, sale, license, or marketing of intellectual property assets. This may include: patents, trademarks, or inventions (prototypes).
McAndrews, Held & Malloy is a Chicago-based intellectual property law firm in the United States. It provides services with respect to intellectual property, antitrust and technology matters, and has a team of registered patent attorneys, agents and technology specialists. The firm serves clients ranging from companies to startups and universities.
Ballard Spahr LLP is an AmLaw 100 law firm practicing throughout the United States. Founded in 1885, the law firm focuses on litigation, securities and regulatory enforcement, business and finance, intellectual property, public finance, and real estate matters. The firm is headquartered at 1735 Market Street in Philadelphia.
Tilleke & Gibbins is a regional law firm in Southeast Asia, with offices in Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Vientiane, Phnom Penh, and Yangon. The firm's core practices are commercial transactions, mergers and acquisitions, dispute resolution, litigation, and intellectual property law.
Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie is a U.S. law firm with approximately 300 attorneys across ten offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. Its administrative offices are located in Phoenix, where it was founded in 1950 as Lewis & Roca.
David "Dave" J. Kappos is an attorney and former government official who served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) from 2009 to 2013. Kappos is currently a partner at New York law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
Harness IP is a law firm headquartered in Troy, Michigan. In October 2021, the firm announced it has adopted Harness IP as its new name. The firm previously went by the abbreviated Harness Dickey.
McKool Smith is a U.S. trial firm with more than 130 trial lawyers across seven offices in Austin, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Marshall, New York City, and Washington, DC. The firm represents clients in disputes involving commercial litigation, intellectual property (IP), bankruptcy, and white collar defense matters.
Mark A. Lemley is currently the William H. Neukom Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and the Director of the Stanford Law School Program in Law, Science & Technology, as well as a founding partner of the law firm of Durie Tangri LLP, which he has been practicing with since 2009.
Lerner David LLP is an intellectual property boutique law firm with offices in the United States, China and Japan. It specializes in intellectual property (IP) disciplines including, among them, patents, trademarks, copyrights, Internet law and trade secrets. Founded in 1969, the firm provides legal advice to clients on intellectual property litigation, patent procurement, licensing, mergers and acquisitions, due diligence and asset management issues.
Banner Witcoff, Ltd. is an American law firm that specializes in the practice of intellectual property law, including patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, computer franchise and unfair competition law. The firm engages in the procurement, enforcement and litigation of intellectual property rights throughout the world, including all federal and state agencies, and the distribution of such rights through leasing and franchising. The firm has approximately 125 attorneys and agents in its Chicago, IL; Washington, DC; Boston, MA; and Portland, OR offices.
Thomas M. Melsheimer is a trial lawyer and a partner at the international law firm of Winston & Strawn, where he also serves as managing partner of its Dallas office and a member of the firm’s Executive Committee. His trial experience encompasses both civil and criminal litigation. On the civil side, he has tried to verdict cases involving patent infringement, trade secrets, insider trading, antitrust, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, product liability, and False Claims Act (FCA) violations. On the criminal side, he has tried to verdict cases involving bank fraud, public corruption, copyright infringement, aggravated sexual assault, and kidnapping. His clients include a variety of high-net-worth individuals and notable corporations, including the Dallas Mavericks and owner Mark Cuban, Microsoft, Bank of America, and Texas Instruments. Melsheimer is the co-author of a best-selling book on trial advocacy, On the Jury Trial: Principles and Practices for Effective Advocacy
A patent privateer or intellectual property privateer is a party, typically a patent assertion entity, authorized by another party, often a technology corporation, to use intellectual property to attack other operating companies. Privateering provides a way for companies to assert intellectual property against their competitors with a significantly reduced risk of retaliation and as a means for altering their competitive landscape. The strategy began with a handful of large operating companies. In April 2013, a group of technology companies asked the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the privateering strategy as an impediment to competition.
