INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & TRADE SECRETS

Intellectual Property Creation, Protection and Exploitation

 

With companies competing in a global marketplace, our clients' commercial vitality and growth depend on the ability to solve complex problems quickly and the ability to leverage their assets, both physical and intellectual, effectively. JGPC Business and Corporate Law combines expertise in intellectual property and commercial law to deliver effective solutions to your problems and challenges so as to give you the competitive edge to not only survive,--but to thrive in today's competitive business environment. With a business-oriented approach, we help our clients' analyze and protect their Intellectual Property, often their most valuable assets, and expand their market share. 

In the area of Intellectual Property, JGPC Law focuses on helping both public and private companies with the three key areas: IP Creation, IP Development and IP Protection. Whether your company is an established public company, a mid-sized Bay Area business or a start-up seeking a competitive edge, we can help you.

Our Business & IP team provides legal counsel in various areas including:

• Copyright and Trademark Know-How and Technology Licensing  
• IP and Development and Distribution Agreements  
• Copyright and Trademark Prosecution, Maintenance and Protection  
• Privacy and Proprietary Information Policies and Programs  
• Website and Internet Counseling  
• Intellectual Property Due Diligence and Intellectual Property Audits  
• Intellectual Property Protection 
• Trade Secrets and Intellectual Property Protection Counseling  
• Technology Transfer Transactions  
• Executive and Employee IP Protection Agreements 
• IP and Commercial Litigation And Alternative Dispute Resolution
   

Intellectual Property Protection

Our advice and counsel centers on a multi-step process designed to help you meet your goals: We develop effective and enforceable IP protection strategies within a client's enterprise that both strengthen their IP assets and minimizes outside risks to their IP positions. By working with clients to implement comprehensive IP protection programs early on, and crafting appropriate agreements for use with employees, independent contractors and third party technology developers, we help to ensure that clients maximize the value of their IP portfolios. Clients look to us to register their trademarks and copyrights to protect their brands and products, and for counsel on their IP licenses and other business contracts that relate to their IP. Clients rely upon us for strategic thinking and experienced perspective during the acquisition or sale of any technology. Our goal is to maximize the value of our clients' IP assets in the face of any third party challenge in court or for valuation purposes.

 

Intellectual Property Due Diligence and Audits

You can’t protect it if you don’t know what you’ve got or how to protect it. Whether you’re unsure of what your IP assets are or concerned that they aren’t adequately protected, we are there to help. We will audit your business to identify intellectual property assets and obtain protection for them, ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and conduct due diligence in connection with mergers, acquisitions and other corporate milestones. 

Maximize Your Profit Centers: Regular intellectual property audits as part of the organizational management audits serve two key functions. The first is to properly manage the risk associated with creating and using intellectual property assets. This requires the company to determine which of its properties are being used by third parties without authorization. This also requires that the company identify what properties it may be using of third parties without proper authorization. The second area of the audit can be more rewarding. Here, the focus is on the property owned by the company that has not been exploited at all, or, at least, not to its full potential. A thorough audit should help corporate managers identify new opportunities to exploit those assets the company already owns. Through this process, a company can turn “so-called” corporate liabilities into profit centers. 

The acquisition, proper maintenance and inventory of intellectual property assets is key to maximizing the return on this investment. Once the IP assets are inventoried, and the existing IP procedures are documented, areas for improvement in both can then be identified and, where warranted, improvements in these areas implemented. These goals can be achieved via a properly conducted and thorough IP audit. While the details of such an audit will be determined by the IP needs of the business being audited, the same framework can be applied to any business.

Our team also negotiates and structures public and private company deals, debt and equity financing projects, business formation, and tax advice with the aim of structuring transactions to maximize tax benefits. We also provide a variety of other outside general counsel services to meet our clients' corporate and IP needs. We strive to understand each client’s business so as to develop sound strategies to deal with complex legal issues.

Trade Secrets

From customer lists to your secret formula, we can help you protect the secrets that give you a competitive edge even when copyright, trademark or patent protection is unavailable. We understand the importance of trade secrets to your business and know how to protect and defend them. We’ll help you put a comprehensive trade secret protection program in place, negotiate and draft license agreements to maximize revenues from your trade secrets, enforce your trade secret rights, and defend you against theft of trade secret claims. If you have been unfairly accused of misappropriating or stealing trade secrets from a former employer, we will develop and execute a strategy to allow you to defeat any unjustified or wrongful claims.

 

Copyright and Trademark

Whether you’re creating a work or using someone else’s, buying a business, hiring a freelancer, protecting a database, licensing images, or posting a website, our attorneys work proactively to make sure you own and register the trademarks and/or copyrights your business depends on. Experienced and up-to-date in this rapidly evolving area of the law, we give our clients the advice they need to secure their rights, avoid litigation, and maximize their growth.

 

For issues involving intellectual property & trade secrets. contact one of the following attorneys.

 
            Bob Taylor

 

            Richard Korb

 

Practice Areas:

• Business Start Ups and Formations

• Business Sales, Mergers & Acquisitions

• Business Contracts & Transactions

• Business Litigation

• Incorporation & Corporate Law

• Dispute Resolution & Arbitration

• Intellectual Property & Trade Secrets

• Limited Liability Companies

• Asset Protection

JGPC Business & Corporate Law is a business law firm providing cost-effective, quality legal services to privately held businesses, business start ups, entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, executives, investors, buyers & sellers throughout the Tri-Valley and the East Bay Area, including Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, San Ramon, Danville, Walnut Creek, Castro Valley, Fremont, Tracy, Modesto, Manteca, Stockton and all of Alameda County and Contra Costa County. We are here to serve all of your business and corporate law needs.

CONTACT US:
Please contact us at our Pleasanton, California law office to discuss all of your business law and corporate law needs.

JGPC Business &
Corporate Law
5890 Stoneridge Dr. Suite 102
Pleasanton, CA 94588
925.463.9600 Tel
925.463.9644 Fax
jgpc@jgpc.com
www.jgpc.com