C+L offers a wide range of intellectual property services, including procurement and enforcement of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret rights. We provide IP portfolio management, legal opinions, license drafting and negotiation, IP searches, and strategic counseling to our clients.
Our clientele is composed of universities and research institutions, start-ups, and small and large companies and we tailor our services to meet the particular needs of each client.
+ Domestic Patent Prosecution
C+L attorneys are all in good standing with their respective state bars and are registered to practice before the USPTO. Since the USPTO campus is just minutes from our Washington, DC office, we often conduct personal interviews to minimize prosecution history estoppel. For personal interviews for patent applications handled out of our Washington, DC office, we do not charge for travel time to and from the USPTO. Our attorneys based in California determine whether an in-person interview or a telephonic interview best meets the needs of a given patent application. They often coordinate personal interviews at the USPTO in conjunction with travel to professional meetings to reduce or avoid travel costs for our clients.
+ Foreign Patent Prosecution
C+L has cultivated strong relationships with foreign associates all over the world. Suzannah, in particular, has developed an extensive international network of biotech patent attorneys who are recognized leaders in the field and are also highly cost effective. Often the fees billed by the foreign associates in Suzannah’s network are less than those provided by third party foreign filing intermediaries, which claim to achieve cost savings through consolidating work but which may allow less control and monitoring of the foreign associates. Since charges by foreign associates are passed through to our clients at cost, C+L’s clients realize direct savings. Karen’s past experience working for a European patent firm adds another layer of understanding to her effectiveness in managing foreign prosecution. In his prior role as in-house patent counsel, Brad has coordinated the worldwide prosecution of IP portfolios. Larry has worked with both large and small firms in jurisdictions across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and is experienced at getting quality representation at fair prices. We leverage these backgrounds to provide C+L clients with quality foreign prosecution at reasonable costs.
+ License Drafting and Negotiation
C+L drafts and negotiates a variety of transactional and intellectual property agreements, including license agreements, material transfer agreements, collaborative research agreements, non-disclosure agreements, and distribution agreements.
+ Search Services
C+L provides search services using various resources such as the databases of patent offices around the world, including the databases of the USPTO, EPO, and WIPO, and the Internet that are tailored to the client’s needs. For biotech/medical inventions, our searching includes, e.g., sequence searches using BLAST, compound structure and compound name searches using DIALOG, Chemical Abstracts, and STN, as appropriate. When it is more economical for the client, we engage professional search companies having technical expertise in the relevant field.
+ Opinion Work
C+L renders a variety of intellectual property legal opinions, including patentability opinions, validity and invalidity opinions, clearance opinions, infringement and non-infringement opinions, and due diligence opinions. Our experience handling due diligence for large corporations also informs our perspective when advising clients who are developing portfolios for licensing or acquisition.
+ On-Site Office Hours for Non-Profits
For its non-profit university and research institution clients located in the continental US, C+L offers periodic on-site office hours during which a C+L attorney meets with the in-house IP professionals and inventors to discuss their cases and answer questions as a firm service.
+ Free Educational Services
C+L offers free in-house educational seminars to clients and their in-house IP professionals and research scientists on patent issues of interest.
+ Regular Review of Procedures
C+L regularly reviews the procedures and policies of many of its institutional and corporate clients and assists them with updating their processes to conform with changes in patent laws and USPTO procedures. For example, when the AIA was enacted, C+L attorneys strategized with clients and helped them implement 1, 2, and 3 year plans for transitioning to first-inventor-to-file and other AIA requirements.
+ USPTO Customer Numbers
Upon request by a client, C+L will obtain a USPTO customer number listing C+L patent attorneys and any of the client’s in-house USPTO registered attorneys and agents, to be used solely for that client’s cases. This enables the client’s in-house personnel with USPTO registration numbers to directly access and monitor their US and PCT cases.