An individual's or company's intellectual property - whether in the form of patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks or trade dress - can be its most valuable asset. Protecting this property is critical, whether through license agreements, covenants not to compete, confidentiality agreements, or litigation.

Steese ♦ Evans ♦ Frankel, P.C. has helped numerous clients protect their intellectual property rights. The Firm has counseled clients on how to protect their intellectual property portfolio from misuse by competitors, independent contractors, and employees through various written agreements. When a dispute arises, the Firm has trial and appellate lawyers with significant experience in all aspects of intellectual property litigation - and, in particular, with copyright, DMCA, trade secret, patent, Lanham Act, and unfair competition issues. The Firm employs attorneys with engineering or technical backgrounds who are able to take extremely technical facts and distill them into manageable pieces of information for the fact finder. The Firm also has expertise in interacting with source code, and the reverse engineering of object code.

Often when intellectual property disputes arise, it requires prompt action and requests for injunctive relief. The Firm has successfully advocated for - or fought off - such relief. The Firm has close relationships with technical experts who can swiftly and effectively advocate alongside Firm lawyers in such proceedings.

Intellectual property litigation can be some of the most expensive cases to prosecute or defend. The Firm's aggressive billing rates are especially important to clients in such cases. The Firm also takes advantage of electronic tools that allow it to efficiently manage document intensive cases. These tools have allowed Firm lawyers to handle everything from relatively small matters to complex matters of national significance with maximum efficiency.

Examples of the Firm's work in this area include:

• Representing a publicly traded data storage manufacturer who brought claims for copyright infringement, Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations, patent infringement, Lanham Act violations, tortious interference and unfair competition against a competitor. The competitor had cracked a protective algorithm, and gained access to and was using the client's proprietary maintenance code against them. The competitor counterclaimed alleging antitrust violations. After a 5-week jury trial in Boston, Massachusetts, the case settled on the eve of closing arguments.
  
  
• Helping various Olympic athletes - including Michael Johnson, Jonny Moseley and Picabo Street - stop companies from misappropriating their names and likenesses.
  
  
• Representing an international fabric designer alleged to have misappropriated the copyrighted fabric design of a local designer. The Firm obtained summary judgment on the copyright claim, and the case settled immediately thereafter.
  
  
• Obtaining a TRO against a medical company accused of misappropriating trade secrets and confidential patient lists.
  
  
• Representing a defense contractor alleged to have misappropriated a trade secret compression algorithm from a competitor. The Firm convinced the court to find that 131 of the 135 items at issue were not trade secrets, thus getting most of the case dismissed right from the start.
  
  
• Convincing a Court to void an overly broad covenant not to compete in an action brought by a former employer against a chemist who created a process for destroying chemical weapons, thereby allowing the chemist to continue product development.
  
  
• Representing a small business involved in the development and manufacture of mannequins against a patent infringement claim brought by a large competitor. The Firm negotiated a prompt settlement, and then helped the client develop a work-around product that avoided any future infringement claims.
  
  
• Working with a software developer in all aspects of product design and development to ensure that the company's intellectual property is protected, and that its use of open source materials complies with license agreements.