Services Provided:
Patents
Trademarks
Copyrights
Licensing
Pricing

Your ideas are critical to your business.  These may include your product names and logos, product designs and innovations, and even your methods of doing business.  Goff Patent Law provides a variety of patent, trademark, copyright, and licensing services to secure your ideas.

Patents

A valid patent keeps others from making, using, offering for sale, selling, or importing an invention in the United States.  Patents can be obtained on a wide variety of products and processes, including manufacturing processes, machines, electronic devices, software, and business methods.

Inventors and businesses gain value from patents in various ways.  For example, patent owners often license patents to others in return for royalty payments.  Businesses may use patents to keep others from copying their innovative products and processes, allowing the businesses to protect their market share and reap the rewards of their research and development efforts.

To apply for a patent, an applicant must file an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The application must meet the requirements set forth in the federal patent laws, including the requirements for the invention to be useful, novel, and non-obvious, and for the application to adequately describe the invention. During the patent examination process, the applicant must often file amendments and arguments to convince the Patent Office that the application meets the legal requirements. If the Patent Office determines that the requirements have been met, it grants the patent.

Jared Goff works personally with inventors and clients to navigate the application and examination process.  He also represents clients in licensing and enforcing their patent rights.  In addition, he works with clients who have been accused of patent infringement.  In this capacity, Mr. Goff uses his patent litigation experience to analyze the allegations, prepare patent infringement and patent validity opinions, and advise clients on how to proceed.

Following are two examples of patents Mr. Goff has drafted:

Hand Held Grinder, U.S. Patent No. 6,386,961

Sub-Band Voice Codec with Multi-Stage Codebooks and Redundant Coding, U.S. Patent No. 7,177,804

Trademarks

Trademarks identify the source of goods.  They can include words, designs, or combinations thereof.  A valid trademark can prevent others from using words or designs that would likely create consumer confusion as to the source of goods.  Trademark owners can also prevent others from tarnishing, disparaging, or diluting their trademarks in certain situations.  Service marks create similar rights, but for services rather than goods.  The term “trademark” is often used to refer to both service marks and trademarks.

Trademark users can obtain certain trademark rights by merely using their trademarks in the marketplace.  However, those rights can be significantly enhanced by obtaining federal and state trademark registrations.  State trademark registration requirements differ from state to state.  As with patents, applications for federal trademarks are examined by the United States Patent and Trademark Office to determine whether they meet legal requirements. 

Mr. Goff works with trademark users to protect their trademark rights by preparing trademark search reports and opinions, preparing trademark applications, representing clients before the U.S. Trademark Office, and representing trademark users in disputes. 

Copyrights

Copyrights give their owners exclusive rights to use the copyrighted works in certain ways, such as copying, distributing to the public, preparing derivative works, publicly distributing, or performing.   These copyrighted works can take various forms, such as literary, musical, dramatic, choreographic, pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works.  One obtains rights under federal copyright laws when works are fixed in a tangible medium (e.g., recorded, written on paper, or stored in a computer).  However, those rights can be enhanced by providing a proper copyright notice on the work and by registering the copyright with the United States Copyright Office.

Mr. Goff represents clients in obtaining copyright registrations in the U.S. Copyright Office, and in copyright disputes.

Intellectual Property Licensing

A license gives others a limited right to use intellectual property.  Often the best way to use intellectual property is to license or assign it to others in return for royalty payments.  Or, intellectual property owners may enter into a cross-license, where they license their rights to each other.  This allows each owner to use the others’ patents, trademarks, or copyrights.

Mr. Goff negotiates and drafts patent, trademark, and copyright licenses to help clients get the most out of their intellectual property rights.

You Choose the Pricing Model

Goff Patent Law clients can typically choose whether to pay a flat rate or Mr. Goff’s hourly rate for services.  Of course, the flat rate will vary depending on the complexity of the technology, as well as other factors that could complicate the work.  However, if a client chooses the flat rate for a service, the attorney fee for that service will be set at the beginning of the work.  Some tasks cannot be billed on a fixed fee basis because they do not lend themselves to reasonably accurate up-front estimates of the time required.