Chemical Industry
The attorneys in Benesch’s Intellectual Property Group have considerable experience assisting clients in the chemical industry with their intellectual property needs. The clients we have worked with range in size from small companies to Fortune 500 companies.
Our attorneys have assisted clients in a wide array of chemical-related technologies, including polymers, coatings (e.g., paints, caulks, packaging), metallurgy, ceramics, batteries, integrated microwave packages, synthetic chemistry, organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, electroplating, epitaxy and doping (LEDs), peptides, and adhesives. Our range of experience is expansive including advising clients on the development and implementation of comprehensive patent strategies, assisting with the preparation and presentation of educational materials for inventors, assessing and processing invention disclosures, preparing and prosecuting patent applications, clearing new products and aiding in the assessment of IP risks related to introduction of such products, enforcing client’s IP rights against others, and defending our clients against the enforcement of other’s IP rights. We are active in counseling our clients on the avoidance of litigation and alternatives to litigation. When litigation is necessary, our attorneys have experience in patent, trademark, and trade secret litigation in venues across the country.
Services include:
- Patent searching, including state-of-the-art/patentability searches, and right-to-use/freedom-to-operate searches and the evaluation of such searches.
- Patent application preparation and prosecuting, including in the United States and also in foreign countries through the use of a foreign associate network.
- Agreements and licenses, including drafting and negotiating.
- Patent infringement advice and counseling, including infringement evaluations, validity and unenforceability evaluations, and design-around strategies.
- Litigation, including prosecution and defense of patent infringement, ITC litigation, trademark infringement and trade secret misappropriation cases.
Recent representative engagements include:
- Retained by a Fortune 500 company to prepare and prosecute patent applications relating to rubber and polymer technologies.
- Employed by a specialty polymers manufacturer to handle all IP matters including preparation and prosecution of patents relating to thermoset and thermoplastics.
- Engaged by a cosmetics company to handle all IP matters, including preparation and prosecution of patents involving peptide sequences and litigation relating to the same technology.
- Retained by a biotechnology startup company to handle prosecution of patents relating to novel drug delivery systems.
- Engaged by a division of a Fortune 500 company to prepare and prosecute patent applications directed to thermoplastics.
- Employed by a manufacturer of additives used in various polymers to prosecute patent applications directed to electrically conductive additives.
