Patent, Trademark, Copyright, Trade Secret Litigation and Unfair Competition
Kercsmar & Feltus’ intellectual property litigators have extensive knowledge and experience in litigating complex patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and unfair competition disputes before the federal district courts, the United States International Trade Commission and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. At Kercsmar & Feltus, we do not offer transactional advice or services; instead, our lawyers provide the expertise in courtroom advocacy that is necessary for our clients to benefit from existing intellectual property portfolios or to defend themselves from claims of infringement by others.
Our intellectual property advice begins with a candid assessment of the strength and weaknesses of our clients’ position. From there, we assist our clients in obtaining realistic, cost-efficient results so that our clients can move forward with their business objectives. Because all of our lawyers have extensive and substantial experience in jury trials, we can offer solutions to clients based on aggressive representation, rather than theoretical musings.
- International Trade Commission Proceedings
- United States District Courts
- United States Courts of Appeal
- Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
- Alternative Dispute Resolution
Areas of focus:
Patent litigation
- Patent litigation is among the most complex and expensive form of business disputes that our clients experience. Litigation of a patent case requires not only knowledge of the patent laws and an understanding of the substantive technical issues embraced by the patent, but also the skill to manage large and complex commercial litigation. That complexity also requires sensitivity to client needs and budgeting that larger firms regularly ignore.
- Our patent litigators have broad-based experience in all phases of patent infringement litigation, including the pursuit and defense of preliminary injunctions and trial and appellate practice. Moreover, our lawyers are experienced in presenting complex technical matters to juries and in using state-of-the-art litigation strategies and techniques in patent trials. But our litigators provide realistic, common sense advice to our clients, which allow them to evaluate their disputes and chart a course beyond their immediate demands.
Trademark/Trademark Trial and Appeal Board Proceedings
- Outside the mega-firms on the coasts, few law firms have developed expertise in the area of trademark litigation. Kercsmar & Feltus’ IP litigators have focused on trademark litigation since the firm’s inception. We routinely prosecute and defend claims involving both registered and unregistered trademarks and service marks, as well as a wide variety of trade dress claims. We do so in all of the typical forums for resolving such disputes, including the federal courts, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”), state courts and a variety of alternative dispute resolution settings.
- Because claimed infringement of trademark interests often presents the potential for irreparable harm in the absence of prompt relief from a court, many trademark disputes involve requests for injunctive relief. At Kercsmar & Feltus, we routinely deal with preliminary injunction motions and draw on that experience for our clients. Our experience and commonsense advice frequently uncovers cost-effective ways to manage preliminary relief requests before reaching the courthouse.
Copyright
- In this increasingly Internet-linked, digital world, advances in technology enable nearly anyone to instantly make not just one, but thousands of copies of copyrighted works. This presents an enormous challenge to copyright owners and creators of all types. While computer programs, audiovisual works, sound recordings and many similar works can be infringed simply and easily, with great loss to the developers of such creative works, other more traditional works also are at risk without appropriate copyright protection.
- At Kercsmar & Feltus, we help clients meet this challenge by applying our litigation skills to protect these important interests and to resolve a host of issues that involve copyrights. These include infringement litigation involving computer programs, literary works, sound recordings, musical compositions, works of art and design, architectural works, luxury goods and many other protectable works. We also are experienced in litigating the often complex issues surrounding disputes involving authorship, ownership, works for hire, copyright ability, originality and fair use.
Trade Secret
- Intellectual property is not just limited to patents, trademark and copyright. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act protects the use of certain business information, including customer lists, financial data, formulas, programs, processes, techniques, and methods. The owner of this compiled information has certain rights to prevent its use or disclosure, so long as that owner can demonstrate that the information has independent economic value and reasonable measures have been taken to maintain its secrecy. In the United States, the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, which may criminalize certain aspects of trade secret law, can raise the stakes in trade secret litigation beyond just the parties’ economic interests.
- Our intellectual property lawyers are regularly involved in cases in which the use or disclosure of critical trade secret information is at stake. We have experience in cases in which temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctive relief has been sought, cases in which the expanding "inevitable disclosure doctrine" (which can prevent employees from working at a new position if it is inevitable they will use or disclose their former employer’s trade secret information) has been applied and cases in which significant money damages have been claimed. Those cases have involved trade secrets both of a technical nature (such as computer programs, mill-building technology and computer networking technology used to enable Internet traffic) and of a non-technical nature (such as business, marketing and financial information and customer lists). Our experience in this area is invaluable to clients facing the threatened use or disclosure of critical trade secret information or claims that they have engaged in the theft of others’ trade secrets.
Representative Cases
- Defended a regional bank against a competitor asserting trademark infringement and unfair competition claims.
- Represented a major producer of cosmetic botanical ingredients in a variety of intellectual property matters.
- Successfully defended a franchisee against claims that it misappropriated franchiser intellectual property by displaying franchiser trademarks on franchisee’s blogspace.
- Defended a publicly-traded company in multi-jurisdictional litigation against a patent troll.
- Defended a chiropractic clinic and its national affiliate accused of trademark violation.
- Successfully prosecuted a breach of contract, trademark infringement and trade secrets action on behalf of the national supplier of third-party medical billing services against a former licensed distributor.
- Represented a national condominium management company in a suit against its competitor, which asserted trademark infringement, unfair competition and cybersquatting claims.
- Successfully represented a national cell phone company in its claims of contributory trademark infringement and unfair competition against competitors.
- Defended a Fortune 500 electronics company against claims of trademark infringement and breach of contract.
- Represented an audiovisual company in its claims of unfair competition and trade secret against former employees.
- Defended a publicly-traded electronics company in multiple patent infringement actions.
- Defended software design company in copyright infringement and unfair competition suits.
- Obtained injunctive relief for manufactured home manufacturer against former plant manager and start-up company based on misappropriation of trade secrets, including construction designs, employee lists and other proprietary data.
- Obtained injunctive relief for telecommunications company against former employee for misappropriation of trade secrets, including customer lists and financial data.
- Obtained dismissal of claims for limited partner of startup company asserted by manufacturing company for tortuous interference and aiding and abetting in startup company’s founder’s alleged breach of fiduciary duty.
- Represented creator of open source Six Sigma website on breach of contract and misappropriations of trade secrets claim related to use of materials; case settled on favorable terms.
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