Patent Lawyers

When you develop an idea or an item worthy of a patent, you should take that accomplishment one step further by protecting it with the help of the patent lawyers at Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. (SHB). The patent lawyers at SHB, part of our Intellectual Property group, work with individuals and organizations that possess and want to protect a patent. A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by the government to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for a public disclosure of an invention.

The procedure for granting patents, the requirements placed on the patentee, and the extent of the exclusive rights vary widely between countries according to national laws and international agreements. The variability of the laws makes working with patent lawyers necessary and extremely valuable. Typically, a patent application must include one or more claims defining the invention which must be new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable. In many countries, certain subject areas are excluded from patents, such as business methods and mental acts. The exclusive right granted to a patentee in most countries is the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or distributing the patented invention without permission.

Under the World Trade Organization's (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, patents should be available in WTO member states for any inventions, in all fields of technology, and the term of protection available should be the minimum twenty years. Different types of patents may have varying patent terms (i.e., durations). SHB’s global presence allows our patent lawyers to work with clients all over the world, making it imperative we stay on the leading edge of patent decisions. To that end, we provide our patent lawyers with an Intellectual Property newsletter detailing landmark cases and updates on valuable patent-related information.

To learn more about the capabilities of our patent lawyers, contact us today.