Patents

Drafting

Patent drafting is a core skill of all patent attorneys. Our attorneys are experts in this key task and also have the benefit of scientific or engineering degrees. They will work closely with you to gain an understanding of the key aspects of your invention, explain the anatomy of a patent application in clear non-legalistic terms and prepare your patent application to conform to the latest practices and requirements specified by patent laws and our long experience of working closely with patent office examiners.

We can arrange regular innovation capture sessions with innovators and technology transfer personnel and will always be available at short notice when immediate action is needed to protect vital assets.

Filing

Choosing the correct patent filing strategy for your business at an early stage will ensure the best commercial outcome. Our attorneys will advise you on possible filing strategies tailored to your needs, to provide optimum protection from competitors and comfort to potential investors.

As one of the few truly Anglo-German IP firms, Maucher Jenkins can directly file and prosecute applications at each of the UK, German and European patent offices without the need to use external agents, thereby making pan-European patent protection a more economical prospect. Our in-house expertise in working closely with these three patent offices makes a favourable outcome to your applications more certain.

Furthermore, our network of trusted overseas IP firms gives us access to unrivalled specialist local patent knowledge in any country in the world where you might wish to protect your inventions.

Searching

Is your invention really new? Has a competitor beaten you to it? Are you free to use your invention? These are key questions to any innovative technology business. Our attorneys are skilled in helping you answer these crucial questions and can perform:

freedom to operate searches to check for competitors’ rights; patentability searches to look for prior published problem references; competitor watches to keep an eye what your competitors are trying to monopolise; and entire landscape analyses to give you a complete understanding of where your innovation fits within the wider technical field and where gaps exist that might be exploited.

The search reports we prepare are valuable commercial tools that can be of use in informing a business on the value of its patent rights, where best to direct investment in IP and how to demonstrate to potential investors the value of investing in the business.

Managing your Portfolio

As businesses evolve, their IP needs change. Correct portfolio management will ensure that your IP assets evolve with your business, allowing your IP portfolio to give the best return on your investment. Maucher Jenkins’ teams of attorneys and paralegals will create a database of your IP assets that allows us to monitor your patent applications and patents, report to you on key events and track the progress of your applications through patent offices around the world. We can provide regular portfolio reports and progress updates and engage with you to assess the latest developments so that your IP and business remain aligned. We can also give you direct secure online access to your own rights database so that you can get the most up to date information quickly and efficiently.

An important component of portfolio management is costs forecasting and control. We can provide detailed costs forecasts so that the required investment in each area of technology and each invention is clearly visible and can be compared against likely value and return.

Disputes with Competitors

Our patent attorneys can help you to assess whether a competitor is infringing your rights, or whether you are infringing theirs and advise on a strategy to try to resolve the situation in the most commercially sensible way. This may take many forms without there being the need to go to court, but in some cases this is unavoidable and when court action is required our teams of highly skilled and experienced specialist litigators in the UK and Germany can be called upon to begin or contest court proceedings.