Matthew Grady is a Shareholder with Wolf Greenfield, where he brings significant industry experience in computer sciences to his practice. Clients both large and small turn to Matthew for tailored, strategic solutions that focus on valuable business goals and assets. He guides clients through the development of effective intellectual property-building strategies incorporating utility patents, design patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
When it comes to the IP rights of your competitors, what you don’t know can hurt you. As your company brings new products to the marketplace, you should consider taking steps to ensure that doing so does not infringe on the patent rights of your competitors or other companies. Understanding what is in the patent portfolios of your competitors and the IP landscape in general is key to avoiding surprises and reducing risk when commercializing products. Competitor landscape reviews may also provide valuable insight into your own patenting strategy. To this end, many companies perform so-called “freedom to operate” (FTO) studies with the goal of identifying any potential IP barriers to market entry and the associated risks of future litigation.