Posts Tagged: "Patent Lawyers"

I have had a fair number of clients, staff members and managers, and have been fortunate to glean various nuggets of wisdom from my interactions with all of them. I now share those learnings – distilled into ten business-oriented rules – that in my humble opinion amount to excelling as an IP legal practitioner. While some of the following rules may sound a bit cliché, my explanations below are an attempt to craft them as powerful reminders that an IP lawyer is nothing without the clients/managers who are willing to pay their fee/salary. Thus, no matter whether your law firm billing rate is $200 or $1,200 per hour, or your in-house salary is $50,000 or $350,000 per year, these ten rules apply!

Of course, these lists never give any love to the small or mid-size firms that provide high quality legal work at a reasonable cost to clients. But that is only one of the things that will raise some eyebrows. U.S. News included Howrey LLP in the top tier for intellectual property litigation and the firm dissolved on March 15, 2011, hardly 10 weeks into 2011. So how exactly does that qualify Howrey, a firm that no longer exists, for top tier ranking? That alone will cause some to scratch their heads and wonder exactly what U.S. New was thinking.

Intellectual Property Today has once again come out with its much anticipated list of the top patent law firms. At the top of the list was Oblon Spivak, McClelland, Maier & Neustadt, LLP, with 4043 utility patents, 72 design patents, which represents an increase of 6.5% in 2009 over 2008.

We do understand that the decision who to hire as your attorney is a very personal one, and you should make the selection carefully. At the same time it is at least a little insulting for individuals to ask us to recommend a patent attorney for them, as if they have already ruled out our services out of hand. It also is a big turn-off when it is clear that those who call or e-mail want us to read to them what we have written on our website.

Last week Inc.com published an article titled How to Find a Good Patent Lawyer. Unfortunately, if you follow this advice you are likely to do exactly the opposite. If you can believe it, Inc.com suggests that you not ask business associates or others for reliable recommendations, which goes completely against the well established best practices in the industry. The article also suggests that if you have an Internet business you might want to find a patent attorney who also specializes in First Amendment law, almost as if those types of lawyers readily exist, which they don’t.