Your intellectual property
deserves serious counsel.

What Scale's IP practice handles

Where the technical work lives

IP work has four distinct sub-practices, each with its own technical depth:

• Patents. Application drafting, prosecution before USPTO, freedom-to-operate analysis, infringement opinions, post-grant proceedings (IPRs, PGRs), and the patent landscape research that determines whether a technology has clear runway. Patent prosecution requires patent bar admission; not all IP attorneys carry it.
• Trademarks. Federal registration (USPTO), state registration where strategic, common-law rights development, trademark prosecution, opposition and cancellation proceedings before the TTAB, and the international expansion work (Madrid Protocol filings, national applications) that protects brands across markets. Trademark work also covers domain disputes (UDRP, ACPA) and online enforcement.
• Trade secrets. Identification, documentation, employee and contractor agreements, security protocols, and the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA) protections that exist when trade secret status is properly maintained. Most trade secret disputes turn on whether the information was treated as secret.
• Licensing and IP transactions. Outbound and inbound licenses, technology transfer agreements, the IP carve-out provisions in M&A, joint development agreements, and the schedule structure that determines who owns derivative work product. License terms that look standard often have material economic consequences when commercialization scales.

When clients call us

IP counsel typically gets engaged at four moments:

1. Before product launch. Freedom-to-operate analysis, clearance searches, patent landscape review, and the strategic decision about whether to pursue defensive patents, offensive patents, or trade secret protection. Pre-launch is when the cheapest and most effective protections exist.
2. At brand creation or expansion. Trademark search and clearance, registration filings, and the global protection strategy for brands that will scale across jurisdictions. The cost of trademark registration is trivial compared to the cost of a rebrand.
3. At commercialization. License negotiations, either side, for technology, content, or branded products. The terms negotiated at first commercialization compound through every subsequent deal in that licensing line.
4. When infringement surfaces. Cease-and-desist letters received or sent, infringement assertions, defensive responses to patent assertions, and the strategic decisions about licensing, litigation, or design-around. The first response shapes the trajectory.

What engagements cost

Patent and trademark prosecution work is largely flat-fee. USPTO filing, office action response, and registration maintenance all have predictable scope.

Scale LLP IP partners typically price 30-40% below Am Law 100 rates for comparable work. Patent prosecution for a typical mid-complexity utility patent runs in a defined range, with office action response priced separately. Trademark registration for a single mark in a single class runs flat-fee plus USPTO fees.

Patent and trademark litigation runs hourly with phased budgets, IPR proceedings before the PTAB are scoped differently than district court infringement litigation, which is scoped differently than ITC Section 337 investigations.

Licensing work pricing depends on complexity: standard outbound license templates can run flat-fee; novel cross-license negotiations or complex joint development agreements run hourly. Royalty audit work and license enforcement run hourly.

USPTO and PTO fees, foreign filing costs, translation expenses, and registrar fees pass through with engagement-letter transparency.

How this fits with the rest of the work

IP work intersects with my primary practice in three specific places:

• Cross-border IP strategy. U.S./Canada parallel filings, PCT entries, Madrid Protocol coordination, and the strategic question of which jurisdictions justify the cost of pursuing rights. For Canadian companies entering the U.S. market or U.S. companies expanding into Canada, the IP layer is often where the most cost-effective protection decisions get made.
• IP as transaction asset. In M&A, technology licensing transactions, and capital raises, IP is frequently the most valuable asset. IP due diligence, schedules, representations, and indemnification provisions all require both transaction lawyering and IP lawyering. The disconnect between those skill sets is where deals slow down.
• IP governance and ownership. Inventor assignment agreements, work-for-hire structures, contractor IP provisions, the IP-related sections of board resolutions, and the documentation that establishes clean chain of title. IP that isn't owned cleanly can't be licensed, transferred, or used as collateral.

The IP partner does the IP work. I make sure it fits the rest of the business.