Counseling & Licensing

In addition to procuring intellectual property, enforcing intellectual property, and defending claims of infringement of intellectual property, the firm counsels clients and works with clients to license intellectual property.

Infringement, Validity & Right to Use Counseling and Opinions - We provide legal opinions concerning potential infringement of patents, either by a client or of a client's patent. The firm also writes opinions on the validity of patents that clients own or are concerned about. When a client is concerned about possible infrignement of existing patents, we provide right-to-use counseling and opinions together with prior art searches and analysis.

Patent-Related Audits & Due Diligence

Ference & Associates will perform audits of intellectual property portfolios owned by both our clients and their competitors. In corporate transactions, we provide due diligence investigations with respect to the intellectual property relating to the transaction. This includes identifying issued, published, pending, and abandoned patent applications or trademark registrations.

Prior Art Search & Analysis

We conduct prior art searches in different technology areas. We analyze the search results to identify any art that might prevent a patent from being issued.

Portfolio Analysis

Ference & Associates assists in creating a coherent patent portfolio strategy based upon a client's business goals.

Licensing

The firm will negotiate and draft license agreements for all types of intellectual property. This includes negotiating and drafting patent, trade secret, trademark, world wide marketing agreements, software licensing and other commerical licensing matters.

Counseling for Individuals & Small Business

We help identify patentable inventions including assessing the strength of ideas. We also draft and file patent applications to protect the ideas. We work with your personnel to identify and preserve your intellectual property rights.