OUR SERVICES
As a leading provider of intellectual property attorney services (patent, trademark, and copyright), pride is taken in offering sound advice and to aid in protecting your intellectual property. APLC is dedicated to serving the needs of our customers each and every day.
How do I know what I need?
Patents protect either a unique design embodied in a useful article of manufacture or a utility itself, be it mechanical, electrical, chemical or method, for example. Utility cases can include processes, machines, or technical improvements and give the owner the right to stop others from making, using or selling the invention covered by the patent.
Trademarks protect how something is identified as it relates to its source. They cover names, logos, slogans, and brand elements that distinguish your business or products from others.
Copyrights protect how something is expressed. They cover original creative works like writing, artwork, music, software code, photography, and other original content.
A patent is a grant of an exclusive U.S. property right to an inventor for an invention, issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. Utility patents generally last 20 years from the application date (subject to maintenance fees), while design patents last 15 years. The property right conferred by the patent grant is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, selling or importing the invention.
Patentability search costs can be expensive, since prior art includes everything known in the world from the beginning of time to the date of your invention. Searches are performed on an hourly rate basis.
Patent application costs vary with the complexity of the invention. However, for a basic utility case, one can expect to spend between about $4000 and $7000 in application preparation fees, exclusive of government fees. Complex applications are considerably more expensive. International filing varies with the number of countries and is also an expensive undertaking. All government fees are subject to change October 1 of each year and are viewable at www.uspto.gov.
PRACTICE AREAS
Patent Office Practice
Patent Prosecution
Patent Interferences and Derivation Proceedings
Reexamination
Reissue
European Patent Office Oppositions
Post-Grant Review Proceedings
Design Patent
Patent Transactions and Strategic Counseling
A trademark or service mark—such as a word, name, symbol, or design—identifies and distinguishes your goods or services from those of others. Marks used in interstate or foreign commerce may be registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to provide nationwide protection and help prevent others from using confusingly similar marks in the United States.
Trademark research can vary in scope and cost, as it may include prior uses of similar marks in the U.S. and abroad. A preliminary search at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is advisable, which is performed on an hourly basis. Trademark application filing is typically under $1,000 per application, inclusive of government filing fees for a single class of goods/service.
PRACTICE AREAS
Trademark
Trademark Counseling and Prosecution
Trademark Litigation
TTAB Litigation
Counterfeiting / Gray-Market Goods
Domain Name Litigation and UDRPs
False Advertising
Copyright is a form of protection provided to the authors of “original works of authorship” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished. Registering your copyright is essential for one to recover damages from those violating the copyright. U.S. copyright application preparation costs vary with complexity and number of the filings required and is performed on an hourly rate basis exclusive of government fees.
U.S. Copyright application filing is typically under $500 per application.
PRACTICE AREAS
Copyright
Copyright Registration
Copyright Litigation