Intellectual Property

Every business (and many individuals) possesses valuable intellectual property which needs to be properly recognized and protected. Even intellectual property as basic as an assumed name (e.g., “Joe’s Diner”) needs to be properly filed and regularly defended to assure its value to the business.

Lambert Law regularly assists its clients in their efforts to promote and protect their intellectual property. Customer lists, software and trademarks are some of the more prevailing property forms which are regularly in need of legal action. Misuse of those valuable property rights is the same as stealing; you must act to stop such piracy to avoid the loss of that valuable property.

If you own a trademark (or would like to), that mark must be registered with either the State of Michigan or Federal Government, through the Patent & Trademark Office. In most cases, the PTO is the best alternative. While the process appears to be rather simple and intuitive, there are in fact several hurdles and pitfalls which can stall or stop trademark registration. We have regularly assisted clients in this effort.

We make the same registration services available for design patents, which are registered with the PTO. While you can register your copyright with the PTO, that is frequently unnecessary. There are other simpler methods for protecting that intellectual property.

There is of course significant risk in exposing your valuable secrets to the registration process, which frequently enables rivals to palm off your valuable property. We help you assess that risk and the alternatives to public disclosure.

We have helped our clients protect their software rights from palming off, and have succeeded in “diverting” others from misuse of our clients’ valuable property.

On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of instances where parties are targeted by overzealous protection of intellectual property rights. We help the unfairly accused stave off these assaults and avoid the often disastrous consequences of such claims. These disputes frequently arise in employment or independent contractor relationships, involving customer lists and product information. Our site features an entire series of articles regarding such disputes under     .

Claims of intellectual property theft are of course in vogue on the internet. Many of those claims are bogus, but some are very real; all of them call for protection through legal counsel.