Trademark / Copyright / Trade Secrets / Patents

Trademarks -- Servicemarks

Jacobs & Associates is actively engaged in securing trademark and servicemark protections for its world-wide client base. At all times we have trademark and servicemark applications pending before the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"). We counsel our clients on the feasibility of securing those protections and when appropriate, we prepare and file trademark and servicemark application for our clients and prosecute those actions when those applications are challenged by the trademark examiners or others. Due to our close proximity to the USPTO we are often able to conduct interviews with the trademark examiners to understand and overcome their objections to our client's application. Over the past decade we have achieved a nearly ninety (90%) percent success record in obtaining trademark and or servicemarks for our clients.

Copyrights

Jacobs & Associates assists its clients understand the copyright laws. When copyright protections are required we file for copyright protection to protect our clients valuable rights. These rights have come under particular scrutiny in this Internet age, where duplication of a protected work is so easy. Our attorneys have lectured on this topic and write frequently to educate the general public on copyright issues.

Patents

While Jacobs & Associates is not patent counsel, we routinely engage the nation's leading patent attorneys on our client's behalf. We have assisted our clients evaluate their options with respect to traditional patents and the new business method patents made possible by the invention of the Internet. Our patent coordination may involve a thee-step patent process: patent search and patentability opinion; preparation and filing of a provisional patent which may provide a certain level of protection; and finally a non-provisional patent filing. We can also coordinate the international patent filings.

Our firm's expertise and accomplishments in these fields include:

• Obtaining trademark, servicemark, and copyright protections for numerous clients, and successfully causing infringers to cease and desist.
  
  
• Reconciling the rights among trademark holders and holders of domain names include the so-called cybersquatters.
  
  
• Providing a highly successful strategy for a domain name entrepreneur to maximize the value of his domain name portfolio.
  
  
• Drafting a royalty agreement for a company engaged in online Internet training to establish the standards by which online content providers can assure ownership, distribution rights, copyrights, and traditional intellectual property rights (trademark/copyright) to online Internet content.
  
  
• Negotiating strategic marketing agreements with major online content providers for the provision of online impressions and cooperative cross-marketing of goods and services over the Internet and the parties' Web sites. This agreement addressed Internet-specific issues such as the creation, maintenance and ownership of Web site content, hyperlinks, Web site aesthetics and functionality; online advertising issues such as quantity, quality and placement of online impressions; brand names; consumer privacy; government regulation, and standard financial and legal terms and conditions.
  
  
• Working with Web site developers, Internet service providers, and communications companies to obtain and protect domain names and Web site content. We are familiar with the Internet's policies regarding domain name disputes, domain name ownership and sale, trademark infringement, and Lanham Act violations, and have crafted appropriate Web site disclaimers and "click-wrap" licenses to assist online clients to protect their intellectual property and avoid costly disputes.