IP Disputes & Litigation

In today's global economy, changes in technology and product designs are constant, and the need to identify, protect, and enforce intellectual property rights is increasing. Pierce Atwood has a broad range of experience representing clients in IP disputes and litigation including copyright, trademark, and patent infringement, internet domain name and trade name disputes, unfair competition claims, as well as disputes over proprietary information and trade secrets. Pierce Atwood IP attorneys litigate matters before the United States Patent & Trademark Office, state and federal courts at the trial and appellate levels, and before foreign tribunals. Our industry experience includes biotechnology, financial services, computer and software technology, music and entertainment, and designers of luxury goods.

Whether you are an inventor with potentially valuable intellectual property, or a Fortune 500 company with a large, sophisticated intellectual property portfolio, we provide experienced and cost-effective representation in relation to IP disputes and litigation. When an IP dispute arises, we partner with our clients to determine the best course of action based on their business, legal, and budgetary goals. We have a track record of successfully resolving IP disputes in the areas below.

Copyright, Patent, and Trademark Disputes

Before we turn to litigation, our attorneys employ a host of other strategies to help clients enforce and defend their intellectual property rights. We handle disputes involving infringement, validity, invalidity, enforceability, ownership, and licensing. When business solutions are unavailable to resolve disputes, we enforce and defend copyright, patent, and trademark rights in federal and state courts and before the U.S. Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB), the International Trade Commission, and other tribunals. Our areas of focus include:

Issuing and responding to cease and desist letters
Alternative dispute resolution, including arbitration and mediation
Multidistrict litigation, non-practicing entity lawsuits, Markman hearings, and creative joint defense arrangements
Opposition and cancellation proceedings, interference and concurrent use proceedings, and appeals of final refusals before TTAB

As examples of our work in these areas, one team member acted as lead negotiator and legal counsel for a multimillion dollar copyright and trademark licensing agreement. We also represented a nationally-recognized home furnishings brand in a copyright infringement action against the world's leading carpet manufacturer, which resulted in a jury verdict of willful infringement. In the area of patent litigation, we defended a biotech company accused of infringing patents concerning kits used to track mutations in the HIV genome. We also represented a lighting technology company in the enforcement of patent portfolio related to LED power electronics.

Domain Name Disputes

Our IP Litigation team has experience with domain name disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and before ICANN-approved dispute resolution service providers. We also provide advice on issues relating to keyword advertising and social media, and generic top-level domain (gTLD) issues including use of the Trademark Clearinghouse.

Trade Secrets, Lanham Act and other Unfair Competition Claims

Trade secrets have never been a more important form of business asset. By their nature, and particularly in the digital age, trade secrets are uniquely vulnerable to theft and misuse. At the same time, the strong protections afforded trade secrets under state and federal law allow bad actors to weaponize trade secret protections against competitors and former employees. Pierce Atwood’s interdisciplinary trade secret, data theft, and unfair competition practice litigates these disputes for publicly traded and emerging technology companies, institutional clients, and individuals in state and federal courts around New England and across the country. Click here for more about our trade secret and competition practice.

Post-Grant Reviews

Partnering with our patent practitioners, our IP litigators have broad experience representing and counseling both patent owners and petitioners in USPTO proceedings, including inter partes reviews and post-grant reviews (including covered business method patent reviews), ex parte reexaminations, interference proceedings, and other post-grant proceedings. Recognizing that post-grant proceedings require diverse skill sets, we believe that our clients obtain the best results when attorneys with deep knowledge of the Patent Office and the underlying technology collaborate with attorneys having strategic and tactical litigation expertise.

Pierce Atwood IP Litigation Team

Our litigators are some of the best in the country; many are recognized by Best Lawyers in America® as being the top professionals in their fields. Our team members present on IP issues before organizations such as the American Bar Association, the Boston Bar Association, the New England Bar Association, and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. One member of the team has led a class on negotiation for Harvard Law School, while another has been included in the World Trademark Review’s WTR 1000 for over a decade.